


Lost & Found

by corrupted_quiet



Category: South Park
Genre: Angst, Depression, Developing Relationship, Explicit Sexual Content, Family, Flashbacks, Implied/Referenced Domestic Violence, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Long-Term Relationship(s), M/M, Past Rape/Non-con, Past Relationship(s), Post-Traumatic Stress Disorder - PTSD, Pregnancy, Recovery, Relationship(s), Reunions, Scars, School Reunion, Sexual Tension, Slow Build, Slow Burn, Smoking, Trauma
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2016-08-12
Updated: 2018-07-13
Packaged: 2018-08-08 07:40:52
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 6
Words: 45,157
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/7749067
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/corrupted_quiet/pseuds/corrupted_quiet
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>When everyone graduated high school, the last place they wanted to be was stranded in South Park, Colorado. Now, five years later, everyone's coming back. Kenny never left, and, working at City Wok for chump change, fears he never will. Kyle did, but, even with his long-term boyfriend, he can't remember how to feel at home. Both of them got lost along the way, and maybe together they can be found.</p><p>References to depression, past noncon, and post-traumatic stress disorder.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Track 1

The old cassette player in the City Wok kitchen doesn’t work right, hasn’t functioned since sometime in the middle of ’97 or ’93, wavers between the two. Mr Kim’s told the story a hundred times, during the off hours, when the ceiling fans sluggishly cut through the stagnant air, sticky and thick as pork fried rice, and when not a soul sits slumped in the stiff chairs, modelled with motifs of the Ming or Qing or whatever dynasty. He leans over the front counter, talking over his shoulder, about how he bought the thing when it first came out in nineteen-eighty-something, when it was a damn big deal that something could play radio stations along with cassettes. When City Wok opened, he set it up in a nice snug corner, so as he slaved over the hot woks and chopping boards, he could listen to anything, anything on FM or AM or stored in a little plastic box.

But then something gummed up the works—he hit the buttons with hands slicked with peanut oil, or he elbowed it whilst wrapping dumplings, or he splashed some General Tso’s sauce on it; that part changes every time—and the radio died. From then on, only cassettes played, ones he bought at garage sales, at flea markets, at places that’d give away boxes for under a buck. Some were broken, robbed of their tapes entirely and sold to rip off the unsuspecting, while others had specially edited versions, from people cutting out the strips that stored their least favourite songs. One he bought off a homeless guy, _The Mama’s and Papa’s 16 Greatest Hits_ , or maybe he pocketed it at an estate sale because the mourning relatives were charging too much. Someone cut out fifteen of the tracks, leaving only the first, _California Dreamin’_ , taping the ends together to form an endless loop of psychedelic. Of course he didn’t know that, when he popped it in the player, didn’t really mind when the track ended and, before _Dedicated to the One I Love_ could start, the guitar played the same damn tune as it did before, unable to depart from 1965. And when the tape got jammed, so stuck that no amount of prying with forks or beating with fists could force the Sony to cough it out, the kitchen couldn’t leave either, forever filled with the voices of Cass, John, Michelle, and Dennie.

Sure, the thing had a plug, one that could easily be pulled during the working hours, but Kenny liked the music, preferred their voices to the silence. He didn’t mind whistling the fluid rhythm, as he stir-fried or sautéed snow peas, or tapping his foot to the beat, as he dropped wontons or bamboo shoots into broth. It gave him a tempo, a tempo to follow when Mr Kim shouted orders to him from the front, whether people wanted _city chicken_ or _city sour soup_. He can rely on those riffs and chords, to keep the fumes of spices from going to his head, keep the flames in the ancient stovetop from jumping too high, keep the thoughts of his own life’s mess confined to a neat carryout carton with a red pagoda printed on the side and a packaged fortune cookie sitting over the folded top.

Water spurts from the factory faucet, in a hard torrent, pipes embedded in the walls whining from excessive pressure. The water hits the dirty wok, like liquid bullets, firing rapidly into the dark steel, using brute force to scrape off the grime. Crisped noodles—from lo or chow or whatever kind of mein—washes off into the silver basin, tumbling with clumps of charred baby corn and burnt carrots. Carefully, as not to put his hand in the line of fire, Kenny turns the wok from side to side, water swashing this way and that, waves sweeping up the gross leftovers. A mist, light but hot, brushes over his face, carrying with it the smell of chlorine and MSG. He takes a deep breath, squeezing the rag wrapped around his hand, making a soft squish. Sudsy secretions seep between his fingers, harsh antiseptic wash carving wrinkles on his palms.  

 _“You’ jus’ like that girl in Chungking Express, Dennis,”_ Mr Kim always says, says when he hears Kenny’s unconscious singing drift over the sounds of sizzling pans and simmering pots, _“A’ways-a listenin’ to loud music. Don’t wanna think.”_ Kenny might not know a damn thing about Hong Kong cinema, but he does know Mr Kim’s right about that: he doesn’t want to think. He doesn’t want to think about how, five years out of high school, he’s still in the same small town, working as a cook in a Chinese joint run by a white man pretending to be yellow, coming home every night reeking of moo shu pork and cheap menthol cigarillos.

He leans the wok over, directing water over the far edge, in an uneven _chug-chug-chugging_ current. The miniscule cubes of beef and flabby slices of mushroom latch to the flow, riding the rivers down the drain, disappearing forever into the black void of sewage. The dull scents of culinary chemicals die away, flushed out. Then, he slides the wok in, angles it so it rests at a slight incline, the closest he can get to laying it flat in a basin too small. He nudges the spigot with his wrist, flow still near-boiling even with his sleeve as a buffer, so the nozzle hovers over the higher end. Under a screen of water, the black steel shines, shimmers under the LED bulbs too bright for their sockets.

The Mamas’ voices rise over the tap, singing about how they got down on their knees, got down and pretended to pray, and Kenny remembers how he found this wok, in the dumpster behind P.F. Chang’s. He thinks about, as he puts the soapy rag to the metal. Bubbles of discount cleaner cling to adhesive water, foaming walls rippling out with each circular motion, Kenny gently rubbing away the slick and oily remains. He doesn’t know exactly how it ended up leaned against a bag of spoiled cabbage, but he scooped it up from the back, rinsed it off at home, and the next day offered it up to Mr Kim as a replacement, for the wok he scorched a few weeks before, so badly no amount of re-seasoning could salvage the cast iron. Mr Kim gave a close inspection, his eyes squinting more than their default exaggeration, before allowing it, merely ordering Kenny give it a few more thorough washes. Every damn day since, Kenny’s used it, and every damn day he wonders, wonders what flaws the managers saw, what made them order some part-time gopher to toss it with the rotting pad thai and half-eaten firecracker chicken. But, every time, he reminds himself that it doesn’t take much—not much at all—for people to toss something aside.

That’s the kind of town South Park is, anyway: a town of discarded things, filled with half-hearts and half-asses. People everywhere—in the magazines and on the TV—warn against the concrete jungle, how that’s the beast that’ll kill, but never, ever do they talk about the goddamn lethality of small towns like this They never bring up those itty bitty dots on the big state maps, the quiet little mountain towns. Places like these, insignificant spots sprinkled in the remote backwoods, don’t just swallow a person like the merciful cities; they eat slow, gnaw and nibble away at the edges, until eventually there isn’t enough left to leave. That’s why so, so many counted down for graduation, for high school to unlock the shackles around their ankles and free them to pack their bags and head off, to Denver or Boulder or Fort Collins, to Berkley or Salt Lake or San Antonio, to New York or Boston or Anywhere-But-Here. Because mixed in with the evergreen’s aroma and crisp breeze was something poisonous, toxic, one that kills all those pretty dreams of escape, and paralyses a person with perpetual winter days.

Most people left, left before it got to them, left after they threw their square caps up to the gymnasium ceiling. Then, clutching their diplomas tied with silken green ribbons, they embarked on their journeys, to the huge state system universities and the quaint liberal arts colleges, eager to start the next chapters of their lives and refer to South Park only as the place of their childhood. There, there the town could sit, affixed in some craft-store shadowbox or art-show landscape, so, so pretty so long as it stayed far enough away, far enough that its bite couldn’t hurt them anymore.

Most people left—Bebe flew to Pasadena, Cartman snuck to Reno, Stan and Kyle drove together to Boulder—but some people stayed, and Kenny was one of them. He stayed because, the week before he turned eighteen, Carol and Stuart got busted as accomplices in some tristate meth operation, with enough evidence against them to haul them to the big house, keep them gone for ten years before even thinking of parole. He stayed because, that birthday when the law celebrated him as a bona fide legal adult, Kenny filed for legal guardianship of Karen McCormick, ensuring dear old mom and dad couldn’t screw with her life ever again. He stayed because, with Kevin deployed somewhere in Afghanistan fighting the Taliban, there was no one else to look after her, no one but him to keep his Kare Bear safe. Kenny stayed in South Park so that, one day, she could finally leave.

The wok sheds its dirtiness and becomes clean, under his gliding strokes. The player coughs static, as the song ends, begins again. He washes off the browned orange peels, humming about the still brown leaves. The rag absorbs the gross and disgusting, damp to wet to soaked, drenched in awful excess. The silver floor floods with tainted water, sloshing from side to side, slapping and splashing, clusters of foam drizzled throughout. The drain glugs, its throat thinning with clogged rice grains and jammed water chestnuts, slow in gulping down the suds. At the end of the night, everything starts getting tired; the sink’s exhausted, the plumbing’s exhausted, Kenny’s fucking exhausted.

 _Just this last one_ , he tells himself, as he reaches for one of the handles, _just this one more_. Mitted hand grasps around the metal wood, tightening his grip with a gurgling squash. Avoiding the direct stream, Kenny lifts the wok from the sink. A collection of cluttered bubbles sits in a low pool, collected at the bottom, capturing the light bouncing off the eggshell walls. He dumps it over, all that extra pouring into the basin, one quick gush that stirs the already raging seas. Then, he brings the steel to his face, to search for any lingering stains, confirm that all he has to do is pop it on a burner at high heat, tell Mr Kim he finished, then pop it in the cabinet and be on his way.

Tired blue eyes narrow, drying retinas stinging as he scans over the dipping contours, searching for any lingering stains. He concentrates, focuses everything into his gaze, to keep his vision clear and steady, stave off the fatigue oh so gradually consuming him. He bites the inside of his lip, canines lightly chewing, just to cross that threshold of minimal stimulation, to keep boredom from crossing his eyes. Then, he inhales, inhales that awful stench, that nauseating mix of Chinese and cleaner. It burns his nostrils, like bleach going right to the brain, the smell all bad trips are made of. Teeth press harder, praying the fumes don’t paint on imaginary blotches on the black, force him to spend another fifteen minutes on things that aren’t there. When the doctor, years and years from now, diagnoses him with cancer, he’ll blame this shit before the cigs. He already blames it for the nights when it takes ten tries to unlock his front door, or when he keeps tripping on his own two feet cruising down the sidewalk, high as all hell and hoping it wears off soon. The only real upside here is the music, the mellow marijuana beats more soothing to his ears than the shit he and Craig got baked to in high school, playing MSI and NIN and all that other punk-ass shit; not that the pretty little alto flute solo can fix the headache he’ll have tomorrow morning.

The door opens, and the loud creaks of its hinges scratch along the inside of his skull, dragging on him like Freddy Krueger’s razor nails. He can’t make out the rounds, of the Papas or the Mamas, the pins grating within the tight hug of the plates, whining for aerosol oil even though the owner’s too cheap for such low-level repairs. His shoulders pinch together, snip a nerve, send a sharp pain radiating through the fibres of his back. As his brain receives the signals, the ones that say _ouch_ and _ow_ and _motherfucker_ , his teeth bite, bite too hard. As he looks away from the steel, he tastes iron in his mouth.

Shades of imperial red silhouette Mr Kim, his form outlined by the hues of the restaurant proper, by the crimsons and carmines and cardinals, by the colours of good luck and happiness and communism. They all blend together, into one aggravating sore, eyes parched and itchy, too vivid for vision adjusted to the stark kitchen, to cold white and bleak black. Mr Kim is made up of an easier palette, of textures and lines, his body shaped by bad posture, his face by deep-set wrinkles. A ray of light reflects off the bald spot crowning his head, filtered only by his thin comb-over, by black hairs like the tip of an ink brush. His skin matches the bottled shrimp sauce, a light peachy colour with a wonky dampness, always clammy. He always wears a soured expression, lips set in a harsh line, his frown as much a part of his uniform as his dowdy restaurateur vest. He peers at Kenny, through the folds around his dark eyes, eyes that might be brown or blue or hazel or grey, but never open wide enough for Kenny to definitively tell.

 _“Dennis, how many times I-ah gotta terr you,”_ He speaks in a grinding voice, in that stereotyped accent borrowed from _Breakfast at Tiffany’s_ , in a near-yell that’d make a deaf man snap up. He raises one hand, the hand clutching the wad of bills fresh from the register. The cash rustles—Washingtons flapping against Lincolns, Hamiltons beating on Jacksons, a few Grants tackling Franklins—as he shakes his fist, _“No waste watah!”_

That voice echo in his head, as the toxins dissipate and dilute in his bloodstream, clear out of his head. His eyes flutter, regaining concentration, as lashes driving out the smoke and vapours. He swallows down the spit and blood, tensing his grip on the metal as his mouth tastes metallic. Then, his ears perk, hearing that the preacher still knows, knows he’s gonna stay, and the water’s still running, with nothing in the sink.

 _“Shit,”_ Kenny mutters, under his breath, hearing the words as he thinks them. He slaps the wok on the stovetop, plopping it on the coiled burner, the landing clatter loud as a hundred ritual gongs. It spins in place, rounded bottom turning it into a top, following the swirling paths of an outdated range. He moves two steps, one foot over the other, natural clumsiness making him stumble. The rag oozes soap, when he grabs the hot water knob and gives a quick twist: one twist and the flow halves, another and it quarters, one more and it’s off. The wok evens out, noise tapering off as it steadies, its watery rival silenced. The music keeps playing, playing out those lousy little speakers, and with nothing else Kenny hears the melancholy between the tambourine’s jangles.

Fingers flip through bills, in droning susurrus, as in Mr Kim counts— _yī, èr, sān, sì_ —counts out his wage. He always pays in cash, always pays at the end of each shift. Just like back in middle school, when he hired a bunch of kids to work under the table, valuing the child labour force prohibited under United States law. And when Mr Kim offered him his old job back, after hearing how Kenny was having issues paying for Karen’s second semester of community college, he insisted on continuing the arrangement they had before: come in for a shift, do the work, get the money, leave without a paper trail. Maybe this is his way of being nostalgic and honouring Kenny’s long-term service, or maybe he’s just so accustomed to doing shady business that he can’t operate any other way.

He slides his hand out from the towel, skin greeted coldly by the conditioned air. A damp hand grabs a soggy cloth, wringing it with his palm, so frothy clumps fall into the sink like mutated snow, plummeting down to moist thunder. He reaches over, with his dry hand, to the knob on the stovetop, flicking it on and pointing the plastic arrow towards the _HI_ marker. The stove grumbles, crankily waking from its brief slumber. The coils flush an angry red, then furious tangerine, and start to heat the underside of the wok. He gives the rag one more good squeeze, before draping it over the faucet. Beads of water drip, drip, drip off the cloth’s edges.

Mr Kim shuffles, his loafers squeaking on the tile floor.  Paper crinkles, seven bills plucked from the stack: one fifty, two twenties, four ones. An even ninety-four dollars, he earns for ten hours work. Should be something like ninety-three sixty, or his boss told him, but he always rounds up. Generosity, he says, but he might just be lazy, might just hate dealing with change, stupid little coins that slip out of pockets and fall on the floor, roll under tables and chairs and turn into money lost.

Kenny wipes his hand on the side of his leg, patting blotches into his jeans. He dyes the denim with his palm, and his phone vibrates against his leg, buzzing with new unread message of some sort. Not an email, not at this hour, not when he only gets Discover statements and YouTube alerts. A text, yeah, but options dwindle after dark, when most people in this town are either on a bender or on their way, him included. Praise small town predictability.

Mr Kim bursts his bubble of personal space, affording only a couple inches between them. He pulls that crouching-tiger-hidden-dragon stance, acting like he can intimidate like Bruce Lee or impose like Jackie Chan, like he can loom over someone with almost half a foot on him. Up close, Kenny sees just how sweat textures his already pasty skin. A fishy odour invades his nostrils, some off-brand cologne he always reeks of. It used to gross Kenny out, now all it does is desensitise. Everything does that these days.

He listens to the light ruffle, Mr Kim holding out his ninety-four dollars, measuring the distance between them with the length of the bills. Then he hears the thick crumple, of his boss surreptitiously folding the rest of money over his thumb, and stowing it in in his slacks. His eyes flit down, to the ridged and lined faces of past presidents, their eyes as hollow as his. Once upon a time, seeing this much money made him euphoric, back before adulthood happened. Now, his mind automatically sorts—Grant goes towards the month’s electric and water, a Jackson covers this week’s groceries, a couple Washingtons pay for another pack of smokes—things to buy now, things to pay for later, things that thin and pinch the pile into a meagre few bucks, which get deposited straight into his savings. Survival is expensive.

His shoulders slump as he raises his head, gaze shifting back to those narrowed slits. He shoves one hand in his pocket, and the phone buzzes again, vibrates against his fingers as they curl around the edges of a recycled paper wallet. With his other hand, he takes his money, compresses seven fabric-softened bills between two fingers and a thumb. His body is one dull ache, all the little pains bleeding into one another, until they become him. His lips pull into a weary smile.

 _“Arigato gozaimasu,”_ Kenny thanks him, as he does every night, like a real Japanese princess. He steps back, towards the backdoor, and takes out his wallet, puts the money in. His wallet slaps shut, and the burner clicks off, Mr Kim taking over the final closing duties.

 _“Méi wèntí,”_ A perfect Mandarin reply, the other half of their cordial exchange. It marks the end of them being employee and employer, and he always honours that, considers Kenny’s shift completely over as soon as the payment transfers, doesn’t ask anything else of him. He grabs the wok, all moisture fully evaporated from the surface, opens the cabinet, and stores it with the rest of their kitchenware. He doesn’t mention anything still in need of doing—taking out the trash, scrubbing off the stove, unplugging the player—assuming those chores without complaint, without any requests for _one more thing_. For all of his quirks, Tuong Lu Kim isn’t the worst boss, not even a bad one.

Kenny passes the inlaid line of cookers, shining silver becoming blank concrete. On an otherwise bare wall, next to the door, his parka hangs off a single coat hook, dangling by the hood. He picks it off like fruit from a tree, and slips it on, left arm then right. With a quick twist of the knob, the door flies open, wood too light and hinges too loose. Chilly wind carries the aroma of evergreens and stench of dumpster juice, stinging his face as it usher him out. He flips up his hood, strands of messy gold mingling with synthetic fur. Maybe he’d be safe and warm if he was in LA, but in South Park it’s always fucking freezing, no matter the season. Even in _June_ , he walks around in traffic cone nylon, lined with burnt umber down. It’s supposed to ward off the chill, but it always nips him anyway.

“See you _to-mahr-row_ , Dennis!” Mr Kim calls out, in a vaguely friendly manner, as Kenny steps out on the backlot’s asphalt. Kenny glances over his shoulder, gives a quick wave, then uses his foot to kick the door closed. Last thing he hears is that _fucking_ song: _California Dreamin’, on such a—_

 _Shitty night_. Clouds mar the sky, streaks of ash snuffing out the starlight. The moon sits under a suffocating veil, its pale glow tarnished by the thick blankets. Its beams sift through, but their brilliance is dimmed, touching the ground as shadows of themselves. Looking up, Kenny thinks how God must be using this town as an ashtray tonight; and how much he needs a goddamn drag.

From his coat’s pockets, he fishes around for his pack of Cheyennes, fingers poking for the opening. The half-empty pack rattles around, until his fingertips find that nice cigar paper, pulls out a much needed menthol. Ironic, how he only smokes the frosty peppermint shit way up in America’s icecaps, like he needs something hot to make him cold. Karen keeps telling him to quit, like a good nurse-in-training, begging her big brother to stop sucking on what she called killer cinnamon sticks. She’s right—Kenny thinks, popping the filter in his mouth—they _do_ look like cinnamon sticks.

He rescues his little Bic lighter from the depths of his jacket, holds it up to the paper. He cups another hand around, shielding the ignition from the wind, as he rolls the etched wheel down, holds his thumb on the button. A slender flame ignites, with an easy _flick_. The fire licks the paper, while he tongues the filter, and peels apart the brown, turns tobacco to ember. Smoke fills his mouth, and he invites it into his lungs, forgetting momentarily how he’s not supposed to inhale. Hard habit to break, after years spent lining his insides with ash, back when he only smoked with buddies after school; he hasn’t had one of those since Craig finished up his Associate’s in Business Administration, before he earned a managerial position at the pet store and filtered nicotine out of his life, and Kenny along with it.

He starts walking, house keys jangling with each step, walking along the white painted lines, the ones that direct delivery trucks and garbage men. The backroad runs behind all the shops of Shi Tpa Town, because this place turned _historic_ less than a decade ago, and if the area can truly be rejuvenated by the magical process of gentrification, that means all the ugly needs a special place to be hidden away. Kenny’s a part of that ugliness, working in the shadows of the most modern district in town, and living in the rundown skeleton of the town’s first attempt at ‘revival'. He gave up on dreaming for a pretty life long ago.

A cloudy puff leaks from his mouth, steaming out on either side of the cig. Saliva glues the paper to pursed lips, lets him exhale hands-free. He trades his lighter for his phone as he inhales. His breath rekindles the cherry, tobacco smouldering, flushing red. He holds the smoke in his mouth, and then holds up his iPhone. The tangerine glow reflects off the cracked screen, speckling inactive black with bits of orange. He lets out another breath, and presses down a couple times on the gammy home button. Everything here needs a few hits to wake up.

The side street illumines, with the blinding light of the Father, the Son, and Steven Jobs’ ghost. Kenny squints, waiting for the backlit words to turn legible again, eyes slow to adjust. All he sees is the time—big skinny numbers reading 10:34—and a wall of notifications, all the messages he ignored during his shift, names and texts of different lengths. If anyone looked over his shoulder, didn’t read the gapping time stamps, people might think he was _popular_ or something. He swipes his thumb across the top message, and pounds in his passcode, so he can send out replies once the fuzzy blurs turn legible.

Kenny takes a turn, rounding into a thin alleyway, the one separating City Wok from Skeeter’s Bar. Newspaper crumples and cans crinkle under the weight of his boots, kicking aside a few random bits of trash. At the end, he sees the streetlamp, shining warmly to showcase the clean façades. Still in shadows, mounted on the edge, is a small smoker’s receptacle, purposely out of street view. Kenny asked once, why it was so out of the way, why he couldn’t at least put it somewhere with better lighting. Skeeter looked him dead in the eyes, said _“To discourage smoking.”_ Maybe it would’ve bothered Kenny less if it was tobacco, not alcohol, that told his dad to give his son a black eye, for overhearing him moaning another boy’s name while he jerked off in the shower; but he stayed his tongue, took a gulp of his Coors, and let Skeeter continue serving drinks his patrons, serving up the more fashionable method of eventual suicide.

Lines and curves define themselves, scribbles becoming words inside the blue and grey speech bubbles:

 _Tonight still good?_ – 11:32 AM.

 _yeah  shift ends 10:30 ish_ – 11:41 AM.

 _Sorry. Running late. Be there soon._ – 10:31 PM.

A sigh leaves Kenny’s lips, as he stops, just before the streets glow. He takes another drag, lets the smoke travel up, heat rising to the sinuses, to play with all the nerve endings embedded in the bridge. The mint activates his _old-factory_ senses, the little _sorta-tingles-kinda-tickles_ type sensations that convert his nose into a coal burning plant. He always called them that, even though Craig used to yell at him, correct him by saying they were olfactory senses, but Karen told him that wasn’t the right term to use. Kenny agreed, not because of academic book-learning of medical know-how, but because it sounded far too smooth to him, lacking the corrosion and coarseness that the smoke cleanses from his systems. It leaves through his nose, slowly, and he takes the cigarillo from his lips, “Dammit, Ger.”

At eighteen years old, Colorado law still thought Kenny too young to be Karen’s legal guardian, hesitant to grant him custody, when by the time he met their requirements Karen would be an adult herself. But things were still too dicey, with too many open possibilities, too many chances for other people to screw things up for his baby sister, at only her expense. Luckily for him, one of his best friend’s dads had a law degree, and knew damn well how to use it. So, while he helped Kyle fill out college applications, he also helped Kenny file legal paperwork, prepping him for an uphill battle in court to have the justice system award him guardianship early. At first it was weird, visiting the Broflovski residence without Kyle there, but somewhere between talking about statutes and preparing for appeals he and Gerald became friends. Hell, he treated Kenny to his first legal drink when hit twenty-one, almost like father and son. Maybe it happened because of the absence, of Kenny’s father and of Gerald’s son.

He takes the cigarillo from his lips, and taps it on the disposal’s ashtray. Cinders crumble in pale clumps, breaking when they impact that fireproof plastic. He types out his reply— _np having a smoke_ —and presses send, before taking puff. The crisp flavour consoles him, assures him not to worry. Besides, if he walks in with a light, the bartender’ll tell him to either put it out or _butt_ out. He decides, with time to spare, he can read any other messages his missed at work, pop the blue bubbles next to contact names and hope passers-by just pretend he doesn’t exist.

In his main inbox, he goes down the list, selecting the name right under Gerald’s. The screen swipes to the side, and brings up another string of multi-coloured speech blobs. Small grey text and a line severs the week-old from the most recent, and Kenny scans over the blurbs beneath:

 _hey cant do tonite  late shift sorry_ – 11:24 AM

 _Aww : (_ – 1:57 PM

 _Tomorrow?_ – 1:58 PM

 _Just had the carpets steamed ; )_ – 1:58 PM

He chuckles in puffs, smoked expelled with each laugh. Not many people expected Token Black to bat for both teams, their lenses tinted with the shades of racial profiling, determining that being African American, upper middle class, _and_ LGBT would be a little too diverse. Nevertheless, when Token finished up at Howard University, he returned home, wanting to take a year off before entering either Georgetown or Johns Hopkins. He came back expecting to join his parents on their year-long tour of Europe, only to find his parents already gone and a note informing him of his real reason back: _housesitting_. They sipped vintage wines on the French Riviera and sampled goat cheese atop the Swiss Alps, while Token loafed in white bread Middle America and struggled to find entertainment. Then he found Kenny.

A couple walks past him, kitten heels and boat shoes scuffling on the concrete slabs. Then one of them—the woman—coughs, noticeably fake, a statement for a tobacco free nation, even though she wears a marijuana perfume. Kenny looks up, too late to see their faces, only seeing their backs. They walk arm-in-arm, with a dark-haired woman leaning on the shoulder of a stocky man. He hears the woman murmur something—probably how some dumb smoker totally ruined the romance—and watches the man plant a kiss on her head, whisper something back. As they pass City Wok, the yellow lights switch off, windows blacking out as the couple walks off to finish their date back at his place.

Yeah, no, he and Token are nothing like that. Theirs is a relationship of convenience, not even countable under the unspoken laws and dogmas of dating and screwing. They’re friends who have nothing better to do, both with gaps in their lives the other just so happens to be able to fill. They mess around so they kill time, and kill time so they don’t dwell on the circumstances that brought them both to where they are now. They meet up, they watch shit on Hulu, they fuck, they eat Doritos on the couch, they say goodbye. Kenny is Token’s leisure activity during his life’s standstill, and Token is Kenny’s periodic distraction from his life’s tedium. Any other kind of relationship is out of his grasp.

Kenny quickly writes out a reply: _afternoon_   _u tell me when n ill come_. He sends without expecting a reply, at least not tonight. No, he predicts sometime tomorrow, when booty calls, Token will shoot him a time frame, and then Kenny will say when he can show up. If there was money involve, it’d be straight-up prostitution, but no one cares if someone’s selling their service for free.

Next on the list is a short message— _restocked fridge! tell gerald hi from me tonight!_ —from Karen, labelled in his phone simply as _Kare_ , an emoji of a bear beside her name. Everyone knew all three McCormick siblings were close, their shared and shitty childhood forging between them an unbreakable bond. They survived parental neglect and domestic abuse by looking out for one another, and as much as Kenny looks after Karen she does the same for him, by doing some of the chores around the house, by double checking his work schedule, by just checking on him and being herself. His eyes glide over the words, his mind ascribing her voice to the text, hearing the gold leaf notes float upon her airy timbre. He knows that, by the time he gets home, she’ll be sound asleep, curled up in her blankets, her anatomy and biology textbooks still open at the edge of her bed. His lips soften into a small grin, and he sends her a less-than-three.

He peers out from the darkness, glancing down the street. Picturesque storefronts line the avenue, with their masonry finishes and their metal awnings. Some windows still glow, with warm light crèmes or cool sea foams, preserving the atmospheres created during operating hours. Others merely reflect the streetlights, mirror the few people strolling on the sidewalks, either concluding their outings or just beginning them. He looks right then left, left then right, right then left, still seeing no sign of Gerald. The cherry flares and fades with his breath, then Kenny looks back at his phone. Only one more text still sits unread in his inbox, the conversation dating back to the morning. He reads this one slowly, starting under the marker saying _today_ :

 _congrats on bein a homeowner stanny boy : )_ – 11:30 AM

 _Haha were barely moved in_ – 11:32 AM

 _*we’re_ – 11:32 AM

Kenny can’t say he was surprised when he heard the news, when heard that Stan and Wendy were coming back to South Park. Even though Stan earned his Bachelor of Environmental Design, few companies and agencies felt inclined to hire a recent graduate, only offering at most an unpaid internship. Wendy fared no better, her Bachelor of Arts in Sociology meaning little to potential employers who wanted years of experience just for her to make copies. They tried staying away, lingering in Boulder for as long as they could, but the job market never let up its brutality.

 _bullshit uve got more furniture set up than i do_ – 11:33 AM

 _Bc if I didn’t Wends would kill me_ – 11:36 AM

 _idk if she wants to b a single mom n have ur kid b an orphan_ – 11:37 AM

When a little pink plus sign appeared on a pee stick, fiscal trepidation harshly overshadowed parental jubilation. After months of smooth talking on his father’s part, Stan found a job in town, one that paid well enough for him to start a family. His parents helped him buy a house in the west part of town, and both Marshes and Testaburgers transferred furniture in piecemeal portions, until they virtually settled before stepping foot through the door. Stan and Wendy only got to town officially a couple days ago, with most of their hours spent either sleeping or unpacking the remains of their apartment. He doubts they’ve even left their new home.

 _Lol_ – 11:38 AM

 _We haven’t hung out in a while. You free?_ – 11:39 AM

The last time Kenny saw him was last August, at his wedding. Stan and his high school sweetheart stood at the altar, with his three best friends standing beside him, as his groomsmen, and vomited his vows until his pukey promises became holy matrimony. He slipped a diamond ring on Wendy’s finger as she slid a platinum band on his, and he sealed their commitment with a bile-laced kiss. Cameras flashed, and captured the moment just before the groom ruined his bride’s two-hundred dollar shoes.

 _not tonite man  work_ – 11:44 AM

That was the last time Kenny saw any of them, saw Stan or Cartman or Kyle. When the four of them gathered together, their arms slung over each other’s shoulders, posing for pictures and laughing between shots. Then, they were unchanged, getting along just like they used to, same jokes and same insults and same, same everything. They could’ve been right back at the bus stop, age six or eight or twelve or seventeen, as though they’d never been apart. Just like the photographs being taken, they were timeless.

 _Sorry had lunch. Maybe later this week._ – 12:27 PM

But at the reception, that’s when the differences showed. As a newlywed, Stan spent more time running between guests than genuinely socialising. Every two minutes, he heard Stan utter _thanks for coming,_ sounding like a broken record before his first dance. Cartman lived at the snack table, stuffing his mouth with the gourmet goodies generously provided. He pocketed pastries for later, barking at anyone who saw, threatening to feed them their parents if they tried to stop him. Kyle delivered the longest best man’s speech in history, holding his wine glass with the same hand splinted with a wrist brace. When he wasn’t talking, he kept his lips on his date, on Mr Tall-Dark-and-Handsome David Rodriguez. And Kenny just stood around, in a sea of faces he didn’t all recognise, finding solace in his free glasses of French champagne. What was their eternal turned ephemeral, and he wondered what the hell happened.

 _Btw she wants to kno if city wok can cater the reunion_? – 12:29 PM

A groan escapes the back of his throat, as Kenny clenches his jaw. The filter bends between his teeth, and the cherry illuminates with angered breath. That’s right, the _reunion_. Because even though five fucking years ago everybody wanted so damn desperately to get out of this place, all of a sudden it’s time for everyone to come back. This town raised them, made them who they were, but they don’t want to mention how it also tried to destroy them, attempted to murder them alive and trap them in this animated grave. Those pretty romantic memories of adolescence went through too many washes, all the shit-stains bleached out, until they couldn’t tell it was a hellhole. Why would they ever _want_ to come back to this?

“Kenny?”

He looks up, only to see Gerald, standing before him. Red colours his cheeks, from walking at too quickly down the blocks, breathing still strained. His pink knitted kippah hides most of the grey streaking his hair, although the brown of his beard has faded with time. He really doesn’t look all too much like his son, except for his eyes; Kyle got those eyes, got that green colour, that rounded shape, that kindness and compassion imbued so deeply in the irises. Kenny doesn’t know why, but seeing them makes him… _melancholic_.

Kenny takes the cig from his lips, all the smoke blowing from his mouth with an easy breath. He lets it dissipate, ebb away into the night air, “ _’Sup_.”

“I’m sorry,” Gerald shakes his head slightly with his apology. The wrinkles on his forehead form and disappear, knitting and unknitting his brow. Light purple shadows underscore his eyes, “I should’ve left the house earlier.”

“It’s _fine_ , man. Not like I have anywhere to be,” He pauses, shakes ash into the tray, then pops it back in his mouth. Red lights, then fumes spread, “Kare says hi.”

When Gerald smiles, he smiles like a dad. There’s something in the curve of his lips that reads _I’m proud of you_ , that really lets off that fatherly vibe. Maybe it’s just projection, Kenny imagining things to make up for his own shit parents, “So does Shels.”

He likes to think that Gerald means it, “So, Ike back from the Big Apple?”

“ _Next week_ ,” He says hoarsely, with the heave of the chest. He partly says it to himself, as a reassurance. A homecoming meant lots and lots of cleaning, and lots and lots of cleaning meant one Jewish housewife going into _overdrive_ , inducing heart attacks with just one look. Gerald rolls his shoulders back, goes on thoughtfully, “He’s back _next week_ and Kyle’s back _tomorrow_.”

Kenny stops, midway through an inhale. The last time Kyle came here, came to South Park, was the summer between freshman and sophomore year. That was before, before the summer semesters stole him away, loading him with so much work that he dropped off the face of the earth every so often, only resurfacing sporadically. It might’ve been different, felt less upsetting, if he hadn’t spent three weeks with that shiner, without mentioning it was his name that caused it, “ _Really?_ ”

“Well, tomorrow night, technically,” He bobs his head as he shrugs, always one for tiny animations, the subtly his wife lacks, “I don’t know how late him and David are coming in.”

“Right…” He remembers the high school David, the kid who showed up around freshman year, showing up as part of the ethnic wave, adding Latin spice to a bland predominantly white school. He was friends, friends with Kenny, with Kyle, with Stan and the rest, but they weren’t overly close. Obviously in the years at Colorado University that changed, at least for him and Kyle. They’d been together a month or two as of the wedding, close to a year as of now. If they talked more, perhaps he’d feel happier for him, “Are they, like, here early for the reunion?”

“Yeah,” Gerald looks to the side, to the window of the bar. His eyes capture the light emanating from the other side of the glass. He licks his lips, thinking of the grape on tap, “Their lease was up so they decided to come back now.”

Kenny nods, and a few flecks of cinder fall gracefully to the ground. He can’t decipher his feelings, can’t tell why he isn’t happier, why being happy is so hard. It’s just the fatigue, he tells himself, nose pressed too hard to the grindstone, or however that saying goes. After he sleeps off the hours behind a kitchen stove, showers off the layers upon layers of grease, shoots up enough caffeine, he can feel good about it; he hopes, anyway, “So they staying with you or?”

“No, no,” His words come out short chuckles, “Komfort Inn ‘til the end of the week. I think he said something about them subletting somewhere in town ‘til mid-August.”

Kenny draws the smoke deep into his chest, letting the ash penetrate his lungs, coat the sensitive tissues. His whole body feels like peppermint, to make up for how he can barely feel at all. Then, ignoring the numbness in his muscles, he forces a smile, “Good for ‘im.”

A few more laughs leave his lips, his eyes still glued to the windows. As much as he values Kenny as a friend, there is a reason they meet at a _bar_ , “How about… I let you finish that and I get us a spot at the bar? I’ll order you a Chardonnay.”

He rolls his eyes, snorts, “Got no qualms with a Keystone, y’know.”

Gerald flashes him a smile, then walks away. Kenny listens to his footsteps trail off, then stop. The din of the bar floods out when the door opens, rousing greetings from its patrons. The noise slowly dwarfs, until the door finally shuts on its own. The street falls into silence, into stillness. This is what the writers all talk about when they go up into the mountains, babbling about the serenity; but Kenny hates how it gets like this, how lonely it is, isolated. That’s what being here is like: isolating.

He looks at his phone, screen black from idleness. He sees himself through the cracks. Quickly, he turns his phone back on, returning to Stan’s conversation history. His lips tighten around the paper as he sends out his message: _how bout u n me grab ky tues for a threesome?_ Then, Kenny leans back, on his heels, and exhales another cloud.

The moon gazes down at him, solemnly. It doesn’t matter month it here; it’s always winter. The leaves look green but inside they’re brown, and the skies look blue but actually they’re grey. And he can’t leave, can’t leave this, can’t leave South Park. He is the cassette, with its tape glued together, stuck in a loop for ever and ever. And all he can do is stare up at the clouds, and hum _California Dreamin’_ , on such a winter’s day.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I really hope you enjoyed the first chapter of this new story! I've been planning this for months, and it has ever so slowly been consuming my thought space. I have no idea how long this will be, but it will certainly be an interesting, angsty, emotional ride. Thank you very much for reading and I hope you liked this enough to read on or leave a kudos/review! : )


	2. Track 2

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Warning: This chapter contains heavy mentions of domestic abuse, past sexual assault, and PTSD. They are not detailed fully but are still prevalent in the chapter, and will be over the duration of the story.

Hotel rooms always remind Kyle of dollhouses, of those neat little playsets that model life oh so simply, portraying the complex facets of life with only a handful of furniture moulds, mass-produced overseas by underpaid workers somewhere in Southeast Asia. Those same big name manufacturers, he bets, make the same plastic pieces in adult size, send them to the cheap-o little inns sprinkled around Middle America, so every bargain lodging, regardless of the name, produces the exact same lead-poisoned feeling. Fisher-Price supplies every room with at least one couch and one television set, one table and two chairs, one shitty coffeemaker and one stout fridge. Hasbro fits each bathroom with a toilet and a sink, a shower and a tub, but always keeps the shampoo bottles and soap bars miniature. Parker Brothers prints out the layouts for the limited furnishing styles, with dotted lines of where to place the lamps and end tables, allowing enough square spaces for guests to move around their rooms like board game pieces. Every damn room looks virtually the same, recycling the same asinine arrangements over and over, all across the country.

And in the lobby, the lobby flooded with too warm light and too clean furniture, all he could think about was how only one thing changes how a hotel room looks, just one thing that truly influences the interior design theories and harmonising _feng shui_. It lies in that standard front-desk question, the one he read in the receptionist’s tired eyes, through the smudged lenses of her thick rimmed glasses, before the words left her full pomegranate lips. He watched her consider, as her pupils examined him—slouching in a frumpy MC Dreidel hoodie, a four-year-old puke stain still visibly outlined on the pale blue fabric, red hair given a salty sheen from perspiration, sweat accumulated in the hours of packing and moving and driving—then moved to David beside him—rugged and rakish with tousled black hair, with those stunning toned muscles and sweet cacao eyes, so _out of his league_ yet standing _so goddamn close_ —trying to judge their relationship. The tall countertop hid their hands, granite and wood blocking David’s tight clasp on Kyle’s thin fingers, and the clerk dully asked, _“Two queens or a king?”_

Kyle leans over the enamelled sink, tapping his toothbrush against the rim. Frothy waves of cool mint swash within his mouth, cleansing water sifting through his teeth, eradicating any tartar built between. Miniature breath strips dissolve, dissipating and diluting in the tap, for no amount of flavouring, natural or artificial, can overpower the strong hints of chlorine, the heavy tinges of fluoride, the characteristic taste of Park County Utilities tap. As he rinses, he feels the clumps of paste break apart, break from globs to bits to nothing; the extra whitening fades, and the taste of home pervades.

 _Swish-swish_ , _swish-swish_ , _swish-swish_ ; does South Park still count as _home_?

At the receptionist’s question—innocent query made in an exhausted state—David tensed, squeezing Kyle’s hand tighter. But it wasn’t out of affection, rather an outlet for frustration. From the corner of his eye, Kyle saw him bite his lip, jaw clenched, subtle little shows of discomfort, the ones that signal his transition to _defensive_. Always _defensive_ , not really _protective_ , and even after about a year, Kyle still can’t tell what he’s defensive of: of him, of their relationship, or of himself.

Maybe years of Eric Cartman’s berating slurs hardened Kyle, made him impervious to those silly little micro-aggressions, real and accidental. No, he was brought up too loud and crude, too obnoxious and offensive, to let such little things get to him. Sticks and stones and coffee tables and men reeking of Parisian colognes have already broken his bones, so why should he let some misplaced words hurt him?

 _“A king for two queens,”_ He said, wry and dry, rolling back his shoulders and lifting his chin. He quirked a smirk, a boyish and immature grin, too fatigued to filter his sass, and leaned on David, resting on his shoulder. Every muscle in David’s arm was taut, hard, uncomfortable to rest on. The clerk flashed a quick smile, then returned her attention to the computer screen.

David didn’t laugh at Kyle’s joke. Come to think of it, even when he did laugh at them, during their honeymoon phase, his chuckles always came out breathless, forced. He must be tired of faking it.

 _Phh-thoo_ ; the foamy water swirls around the drain, licking the white walls. Left behind are funky blue stains, undoing the hard work of maids paid under ten dollars an hour in just one hard spit. Under the incandescent bulbs, the tinted splashes look so disgustingly filthy. That’s why Kyle hates hotels so much, because any mark left looks wrong, makes the whole place feel eerily ruined, somehow sullied. They are phantom realms, where nobody really lives, where people just pass through, pass by, pass over. This isn’t the same Angel of Death from the Exodus though, no, it’s a forlorn ghost, one whose touch infects those in its wake, with desolation and loneliness and all that other bullshit that drains a person’s soul. Kyle doesn’t need to feel that, not any more than he already does.

When the clerk slid their pair of key cards over the shiny granite, she told them to enjoy their stay, _together_. But as soon as Kyle put his suitcase down, about to reach over for the keys, David said something about needing to double check the car. Had to unpack some other stuff, he said, even though they agreed long before they left Boulder that they’d only have one suitcase each to take in for the hotel. Kyle turned his head, to look up, ask further, but before a question formed on his lips, he felt David’s lips press to his own. A chaste kiss, quick kiss, over in a blink, one Kyle scarcely felt. The constricting grip vanished, freed his other hand, and just like that David was gone, disappearing with one card out the automatic doors, letting Kyle stand there, _alone_. Yet, walking down the sanitary hallway, plastic wheels ploughing parallel trails in the diamond patterned carpet, Kyle kept wondering why he wasn’t upset, why he wasn’t angry, why he just didn’t _care_.

He gulps down the residues in his mouth, swallowing new saliva and stray bubbles. But the tastes of the chemicals and mints don’t linger on his tongue, not like they should. They roll down his throat, washed away by something else, by some other flavour, _melancholy_. One semester he took a class on ancient medical theory, learned all about how melancholy comes from Greek, a disease with a full blown diagnosis, Hippocrates claiming the condition caused by excessive black bile. Kyle thinks he was off, because, in his case at least, he thinks it’s _tar_ , from Gitanes and Gauloises. He knows just where he got an excess of that.

His tongue swipes over his teeth, upper then lower, moving under closed lips. He feels all the sensations of a fresh and plaque-free mouth, the smoothness and sleekness, but none of the actual cleanliness. He lifts his head, eyes rising from the shiny faucet to the wide mirror, to the duplicate looming over the copied counter. The bathroom is a gradient of beiges, of opaque topaz and bleached jasper, desaturated as not to offend. Ironically, Kyle is made of too much colour.

A mop of crimson curls contrasts so strikingly from the shower curtain behind him, vaguely oily swirls outshining the latent pinstripe. His light complexion doesn’t match the room, too pale to blend, a few random freckles sprinkled here and there on his skin, awkward and haphazard. Violet swatches underline a pair of green eyes, wearing his weary, dark pronounced strokes painted on the pigments by long hours of wakefulness and restlessness. Kyle blinks, slowly, taking in how he looks; he’s never considered himself particularly good-looking, fitting all the goddamned stereotypes, from his untameable fluffy fro to his skinny five-foot-seven body to his angular _Jewish_ nose. When he was younger, his mother used to say he looked just like Great Uncle Eliezer, some obscure relative who died long before the night in Newark when Gerald’s sperm and Shelia’s egg joined to conceive Kyle, who apparently in his day earned the reputation of the Hottest Hebrew in Hoboken. He can’t tell if that’s better or worse than what his father said, when he compared him to his mother, a fact too glaring to deny.

But he rarely looked, and rarely ever looks like _shit_. No, he doesn’t display and advertise outwardly the mess compiled inside, shovelling emotions and anxieties into the cosiest cavities between his organs, so the world doesn’t know what goes on deep down. He mastered it, got it down to a science. He concealed it all through exam weeks during his college career, masked it during a hectic internship at Boulder History Museum, even covered it up when he returned each night to the apartment and told David he was just fine. Right now, though, he can’t lie to himself. His lips pull into a tight line, knitting his brows as his stare bores into the reflected green, only one thought in his mind: _I look like shit_.

In the pocket of his hoodie, something buzzes— _bvvp, bvvvvvp, bvvp_ —vibrates against his stomach. Electronic pulse transfers, from iPhone to cotton, from cotton to skin, cushy fibres tickling his abdomen. One, two, three times he blinks, blinks out of his trance. Fluttering lashes ward off further intrusive thoughts, dismiss more overly-critical introspection, brushes off repetitious self-loathing, and he shakes his head. He shoves a hand in the front pouch, fingertips tip-tapping fuzzy walls, searching for a silicon case. His hand wraps around the rectangular edges, the phone vibrating again in his grip, tingling in his palm as he pulls it out. Kyle leans back, refocuses his eyes, lets the mirror’s scene go blurry while he holds the lit screen to his face. Without contacts, he narrows his eyes, squinting away the blended edges.

The date and time overlay his lock screen’s picture, the picture taken at Bear Peak’s summit, a good four months ago, before the picturesque began to dim. He remembers that day, when he and David hiked all the way up the rocky looping trail, pointing out wild flowers peeking from thin snowy blankets, inhaling the dry and brisk air of waning winter days. It was their celebration, celebrating the both of them being through with the toils of undergraduate education. The previous spring, Kyle finished his degree, a double in History and Anthropology, with a minor in Jewish Studies, _magna cum laude_. He never celebrated then, because even in the moment, the moment the provost announced his name and called him to the podium, beckoning him in his gowns to walk to the front and receive this great honour, all he felt was bitterness, memories the summer and fall of junior year poignantly acrid, too aware that those months cost him _summa_. David had far more reason for his joy, after struggling with the registrar over misplaced and erased credits, refusing to count his semester studying in Perugia, prolonging his time as a student until the fall. Then there was a misprint, putting an unneeded acute accent over the _i_ in his first name, even though Spanish linguistics stresses the last syllable so long as the word doesn’t end with an _n_ or an _s_. But by the first week of March, the school finally sent him his proper degree, _cum laude_ in Comparative Literature; David beamed over the paper, exuding pure joy, Kyle never saw those brown eyes glow brighter. Then, he grabbed Kyle by the waist, spun him into a tight embrace, kissed him with such unbridled passion, harder, rawer, rougher than any of the times they’d fucked. Hope sparked in him, Kyle dumbly smiling as David rambled on, declaring the next morning they hike up the Peak, look down upon the city, and scream across the plains their accomplishments, their victories.

The picture on his phone is them frozen in another time, in the moment when they sat up amongst the beautiful Coloradan nature, the sun reaching its zenith, the two of them basking in its noontide glory. David held the phone, the camera turned to take a selfie— _my third selfie ever_ , he said—his other hand pulling back Kyle’s ushanka. Kyle combated him, by planting a clumsy kiss on his cheek, obscuring part of his face— _I don’t take selfies_ , he told him—and tugging on the collar of his puffy navy vest.  Later that day, when they descended with aching legs and bolstered lungs, Kyle slid off that vest, when they climbed into the backseat, parked somewhat conspicuously on the side of an empty road, had sex that fogged the windows. Even though Kyle said at every split they just wander off the trail, go into the thicker parts of the underbrush, go at it with the dirt and leaves and bugs all around them, David didn’t sway until they started driving homeward, when he seemed to just give in. Sixty-nine’ing in his Volvo has to be the most adventurous sex they’d ever had.

A banner notification obstructs the photo, Messages app blocking their faces, their smiles and their laughs, frivolities of the past. Kyle’s eyes dart over the words, scanning first the contact name—Stan Marsh—relief rushing through him. His lips ease into an upward curve, softening, alleviated by the thought alone, of his childhood pal, partner in crime, lifelong constant, super best friend. As he reads the message, Stan’s voice echoes in his head:

 _You get here yet dude? –_ now

 _Or you making David pull over every exit to catch ChinGO? –_ now

A roll of the eyes, knowing Stan in his living room is imagining the exact reaction. They’ve spent their whole lives practically in sync, with only a few hiccups here and there, when Stan had his first existential crisis at ten years old, or when Kyle spent five months repeating French words. Every big life event, they’ve experienced together, from Stan winning the playoffs for the Cows as a high school freshmen to picking out his engagement ring for Wendy, from Kyle becoming a man in the eyes of Judaic law to getting the highest grade in Race and Ethnicity in Global Perspective despite being youngest in the class, from Kyle coming out after he and Stan drunkenly made out at Bebe’s sweet sixteen to Stan calling an ambulance after finding Kyle unconscious and beaten on his 21st birthday. Things go right and things go wrong, but no matter what Stan always has Kyle, and Kyle always has Stan.

Kyle takes a few steps back, in the limited space allowed between sink and tub. His sneakers squeak on the tile, reverberating in the emptiness. He adjusts his hold on the phone, switching phone from left hand to right, so he could type with one hand without issue. With just his thumb, he composes his too witty message— _Oh haha fuck off_ —and pressing the send button. One click sends his words across space, in a silenced swoosh, words turning into pixels and radio signals, soaring from his hotel room to Stan’s living room, to ding and vibrate against Stan’s half-finished can of Coors. Kyle waits, watching the screen, a few seconds passing of nothing, then a grey bubble containing a pulsating ellipsis. Finally, the phone brightens again, vibrates.

 _Taking that as a ‘yes Stan I did just get back to town thank you soooo much for asking’ :P –_ now

He thinks of Stan mimicking the emoji, like he always does when he uses on in text. Stan would stick his tongue out like a lazy dog, one eye narrowing as he did, involuntarily, a reflex. His brows would furrow together, the faintest creases forming on his forehead, hidden by sloppy black bangs. His nostrils would flare out, completing the expression, looking like he just chugged a Long Island Iced Tea. Wendy loves those things, vodka and tequila and rum, all the booze Stan can’t stand, but when she doesn’t finish—and she never finishes—he always drinks the rest. He gags, face contorting, but claims it a sign of his devotion, his love for his sweetheart. Kyle replies:

_Don’t you have a wife to annoy or something?_

From high school to college, Wendy and Stan stayed together. Sure, during the late years of adolescence, they had their spats, evanescent breakups lasting just a week or so, always concluding with Stan apologising for whatever stupidity sparked the incident, Wendy claiming partial responsibility by citing her headstrong nature, and the two getting back together. But their soap opera stage ended when they left home, leaving their drama behind, developing stability. People referred to them as the old married couple by the time they were engaged, saying the type of ring didn’t matter, it’d be one of those someday. Originally they wanted to get married the summer of their junior year; only Kyle knows why they _really_ postponed it.

_Wends went to bed early_

Kyle was slower, slower in entering the dating scene. South Park had such limited options; most weren’t out—David among them—the ones that were had sights set elsewhere. He only tried relationships once, the start of eleventh grade, when Chris Donnelly asked him out after band practice; it turned out all he wanted was to lose his virginity, performing as badly as he played, and sealing Kyle’s disdain towards trumpet players. No, high school was the era of pining, of spending two years longing for the unattainable, of jacking off to porn starring blond borderline twinks and yearning for the touch of a boy too close to see him that way.

_How’d you piss her off this time_

Way back when they were all little kids, adults kept saying “There’s a time and a place for everything, and it’s called college.” Kyle never meant to take the saying to heart, at least not how the way he did. But the prospect of new people—queer people, people he’d never met before, people who knew nothing about him—overly encouraged him. Taking advantage of his ‘nerdy charm,’ he let the college experience overwhelm him, spending free time during the first couple years playing the game, reaping the benefits of boys who knew what they were doing, and enduring the trials posed by those who just plain didn’t. 

_Dude she woke up at like 5_

David doesn’t always know what he’s doing, but he’s better than the one who came before. Not better in the bedroom, but a far better person. He’s nice, he’s sweet, he’s caring. Kyle started liking him for that, because he was just safe. _So_ safe became _too_ safe, a revelation that brought with it a thousand other epiphanies. The things they bonded over—cooking techniques and Renaissance architecture, UNESCO sites and social justice—turned into things they argued over, and each day they discovered new points of contention.

_Wtf_

He was never malicious, never intentionally mean, just underestimating his words’ effect. They used to share the cooking duties, alternating each night. When David had a week of exams, Kyle took the liberty of making a huge vat of chicken soup, so they wouldn’t need to cook until the weekend, using a perfected version of his great grandmother’s recipe, with parsnips and onions, bay leaves and whole peppercorns. But on the last day, as Kyle poured the last of the broth from ladle to bowl, David made an offhand comment, _“I’ve never had this much white people food in my life.”_ Kyle withdrew from the kitchen, although he can’t remember why, why he stopped doing something he enjoyed so much, but it was after that week. For the son of two restauranteurs, the food he makes always comes out fairly dry, with an overuse of cumin.

_Morning sickness_

He only brought up kids once, just after the news of Stan’s impending fatherhood. They’d lain on the couch, his head on David’s chest, only half listening to the news on the television. It came up as a joke, Kyle musing how, if they had kids, their family would be two dads and a couple of little _Mexi-Jews_ , ever so politically correct. He smiled wistfully dreaming of a future, only for his grin to twitch at the sound, of David saying in a very sure tone, _“My family’s big enough, I don’t need to have kids of my own.”_ The subject never came up again, that conversation never actually addressed, Kyle always steering away from the topic when brought about in public, never breathing it in private. He may have a stereotypically large one, but David never speaks of his extended family, or seems to like his younger cousins much at all.

Kyle hesitates, thumb hovering over the digital keyboard, words drifting out of his head. His eyes flit up, to the complimentary robe dangling from the bathroom door’s hook. No doors have opened or closed, not since Kyle swiped his card and walked from the bright corridor to the pitch room, groping the wall for a switch. The lot isn’t big, the car isn’t far away, the hotel isn’t complicated; David is avoiding him on purpose. And he should call him out on it, confront him and ask why he’s pulling this shit, why now, but he can’t. He can’t place why, but he _can’t_. That requires so much _energy_ , to ask and get answers, then to fix and move on. Maybe it wouldn’t be a problem, if Kyle wasn’t already _damaged_.

A hand clenches, around the phone, and malleable silicon feels like jagged rocks, like bits of glass, piercing his skin from every direction. When the doctors picked the shards of that champagne bottle out of his hand, Kyle fixated on the little bloodied crystals, as tweezers picked them from his flesh. Loud clunks echoes as they fell onto the metallic pan, to be tossed aside later, under the label of biological hazards, harmful objects, proof of abuse. Maybe it was whatever drugs he was on, for the fractured bones and torn ligaments, but on that dish he saw the outline of a moth, made from those blood diamonds, fragile wings gracefully spread. They were like his mother’s necklace, the Magen David that, when pulled apart, become six bejewelled butterflies. Popular during the Inquisition, the woman at the Judaica shop told him, something Jews used to both proclaim and hide their identities. Kyle bought her that necklace, for the Mother’s Day at the end of his sophomore year, before he moved into that apartment, moved in with Christophe. Six months later, when his life was pulled apart, he saw that he wasn’t made of six pretty insects; he didn’t know what he was made of, because whatever little charms connected him together snapped off, scattered all over. It’s hard to wear a broken chain.

The phone vibrates again, this time sending latent twinges through his palm. Bones lock in place, muscles going stiff, taut, tense. A grimace forms on his face, his eyes returning to his hand, staring at rigid fingertips clinging to the edges, at the result of a _severe triangular fibrocartilage complex tear_ , as the doctors said. Exercise daily, they told him on that hospital bed, and it could go away. But he still needed to wear a brace for Stan’s wedding, over a year after the fact, and every now and then he just feels his wrist _tighten_ , his hand _cramp_ , his fingers _strain_. It varies from person to person, they said, so there’s not guaranteed timeline on recovery. He beat you pretty bad, they remarked, but Kyle omitted the worst. Not even David knows that part.

_Kenny texted me. He wants me n him to swing by tomorrow. Cool w/ you?_

He heard more about Kenny through his parents than he did from talking to Kenny. That wasn’t Kenny’s fault; from what Gerald mentioned, he was working a lot, paying for Karen’s education singlehandedly, seldom seen outside his job. If anything, Kyle hadn’t kept up with him enough, listening to saccharine manipulations, letting another control who spoke to, until he forgot how to connect with the people he cherished. Every time he sent a text, guilt pooled in his stomach, thinking again and again how it was his fault, his fault that they didn’t talk as often, his fault that he wasn’t present enough of in his life, his fault that he never spoke up in the past. Ironic, the guy renowned for his speeches lost the ability to actually communicate. Or maybe that’s why he always made speeches, because he could avoid listening to the other person for as long as he could speak, procrastinate on hearing the words of rejection he predicted would come from lips he longed for.

Kyle pries the cell from his fingers, sliding it up and out of his grasp. He bites softly on his bottom lip, tucking his left hand into his hoodie, resting it between the fabric walls. With his right hand, he adjusts the phone, so he can hold and type at once. Whilst his thumb taps out a message, he practises some movements—bending his wrist, opening his hand, wiggling his fingers—praying feeling return before David arrives. Otherwise, he’ll bring it up, ramble-ramble-ramble on, when Kyle is done with talk. They don’t hear each other anymore, anyway.

_Come around one. We can figure something to do._

White send box morphs into blue speech bubble, black print turning white. Before he clicks the button on the side, tiny grey words say Delivered underneath his message. He presses down, watches the screen go black, and sees his reflection again. Before his mind has time to dwell, he shoves the phone back in his pocket, and heads to the bathroom door. Left ajar, all he does is loosely grab the gold handle and give a strong tug, the hinges doing the rest of the work.

Atop the pristine bedding, his suitcase sits, its worn wheels pressing into crisp white linen, already open, too-bright green exterior offsetting the room’s neutral tones. For somewhere around five years, this suitcase has carried him and everything about him, housing all those stupid and trivial belongings that, when combined, create the materiality of his life. He bought it—or more accurately, his mother bought it—in the frenzied fall of senior year, when he worked tirelessly on applications and resumes, writing essays about how he would make a unique addition to Miami, how he would be a perfect fit for Syracuse, how he would be excel to his potential at Brandeis. He compiled all his extracurricular—two years in debate as co-captain, three years in history club as treasurer, four years in band as first chair flautist—and all his test scores—1320 on the SAT excluding the writing, 32 on the ACT even though he barely studied, fours and fives across the board on all his AP tests—on Common Application, then shelled out a few hundred bucks to have four different schools read over his achievements and transcripts, his writing samples and recommendation letters, and determine whether or not to add him to their freshman rosters. He waited on their responses, while Shelia looked online, planning already for the day he left, buying him two upright spinners, one wheeled duffel, one small trunk, and one carry-on tote. The package came to his door the same day as his acceptance to University of Colorado, Kyle first breaking the seal to discover admittance, then tearing open the box to find the ugliest baggage he’d ever laid eyes on.

 _Mucus_ , that’s the colour his mother thought best, unable to differentiate between shades of green Kyle liked—evergreens and limes, the tones of leaves and fruit and forests—and those he despised—snots and vomit, the hues of ailments and allergies and diseases. But as much as he hated the shiny ectoplasm exterior, they stored everything comfortably, from his pants and tees to his books and comics to his lube and dildo. And when he and his parents finally sat down around the dinner table, with all four letters of acceptance laid before them, and compared the price tags on their son’s education. New York and Massachusetts swiftly fell out of the question, and even though he could get a partial ride to Coral Gables, none of those pretty private places out-of-state rivalled Boulder, with low-rate and scholarships eradicating the need for predatory student loans. So Kyle and his five piece baggage travelled up US-285 and CO-93, and settled down in the home of the Buffs.

But that whole set didn’t last, didn’t make it back. Spring break of his first year, he and Stan went to Albuquerque, but Stan didn’t check the straps very well on the way back north, and Kyle’s trunk tumbled onto I-25 somewhere along the way. The winter he went on Birthright, he enjoyed his ten-day tour of Israel, but when he scanned the conveyor belts at Denver International, he couldn’t find the spinner stuffed with souvenirs for his friends. At the end of sophomore year, he was so thrilled to move out of the dorm and into an apartment for the summer semester, but he left his duffel in the hallway when he went to the bathroom, and in the heat of move-out someone either purposely or accidentally stole his bag. October of junior year, Kyle sat stitched up in the passenger’s seat as Stan drove back to the complex for the last time, determined to move him out of that French fuck’s cage, but when they rolled into the parking lot they found his possessions strewn all over the asphalt, and neither of them noticed that his asshole ex never tossed his tote out the window but instead kept it as a memento of his _petit oiseau_. That left just one, one hard-cased spinner, remaining of the collection he brought with him. Yet, even without the other pieces, Kyle can still fit his whole life inside; anything he can’t cram into padded walls he just weighs on his back.

He imprints his footsteps into the carpeting, each step another wear on the fibres’ elasticity, taking their time in bouncing back upright. The air conditioner, fixed under the curtained window, turns on with a rasp, heaving out chilly air, only slightly warmer than the mountain breeze on the other side of the glass. Kyle counts the strides, from the bathroom to the bed, hoping for a number higher than expected, for something to counteract the inherent claustrophobia. He recites in his head—nine-ten, eleven-twelve, thirteen-fourteen—until he stops at fifteen, at the foot of the bed. Eyes glide over the stacks of clothes, and his pocket buzzes.

Testing his left hand, he fishes for the phone. Sometimes, the episodes last a long time, an hour or two, with the promise of resurgence; those are his bad days. Today is a good one, feeling creeping back up his arm, the numbness ebbing away, succumbing to commands sent from his brain, submitting to his will. He takes out the phone one more time, and glances at the screen.

_David coming or…?_

A sigh leaves his lips, in sync with the AC’s rattling moan. In Boulder, every time Stan suggested a double date, it ended awkwardly, always something to offset the mood. The first few months Kyle kept claiming it was something they were doing, but he’s too worn to try and lie about it at this point. David and Stan were cordial, got along well, but with clear restrictions, friends in the shallowest sense. And Kenny, before the wedding, Kenny and David hadn’t so much as thought of each other since high school. After Kyle introduced David to him as his boyfriend, the two exchanged only a few words, all of them hollow, in every sense. In the moment, he didn’t pay attention to that, more concerned with receiving tender kisses than how he was received. If he paid more mind to how they reacted, he could’ve ended the charade long ago.

_No. Just us three._

No, he wouldn’t’ve ended it, even if he noticed. He needed it too much, even its existence relied on sheer gossamers, he wanted something that worked. It used to make him happy, but now? He’s kept it up too long, he can’t. He can’t tell David that he’s done _using_ him as an emotional Kleenex, that he’s throwing him away, because he’s run out of folds Kyle hasn’t left snot in already. Doing that would be a mistake, would be sabotage. Not only would he leave David scrapping crusty sludge off his life, but he’d probably be damning somebody else to the same thing, down the line, some other poor fucker who’d have his energies sapped trying to complete a man who cannot be whole. They’d cut themselves on every sharp edge of Kyle’s being, and either bleed themselves to death or wise up and leave him. David is smart; he’ll leave him. Kyle would.

_K well see you then_

He tosses the phone on the top of his ‘nice shirts’ stack, letting it make a crater in his magenta argyle sweater. The screen darkens as it settles, in the depression, technology nodding off on a bed of woollen yarn. His hands meander, to another pile, the one of ‘okay to good jeans,’ casually filing through them aimlessly. Denim enlivens sleepy fingers, and the phone vibrates one more time. The screen illumes with Stan’s final message, last of the night, an amendment of his parting note:

_*we’ll_

A laugh comes out in a hum, reverberates in his sinuses. His lips tease into a soft smile, gazing at the minor correction until the glass goes black again, savouring this, the smallest of things. They’re all he really has left, to hold close, to treasure. Is that what happens to people like him, people smashed into too many pieces? Is it only possible, after that, to love things as small and useless as him?

Loud lamenting hinges announce David’s entry, door sweeping open with a noisy cacophonous creaking. Kyle eyes the folded jeans, hand running down the curved edges, the blacks and greens and blues, in their various shades and hues, listens to him kick the door closed, to his the bellowing approach. He counts those, too—seven-eight—how many steps takes David to move—nine-ten—from the corridor—eleven-twelve—to the bed. He doubts that the room’s confinement can bring them closer, that the dollhouse can replicate a lasting loving bond, that they can stop playing pretend in this dimension reliant on image alone.

“Find what you were looking for?” Kyle says, decidedly, David taking his thirteenth step. He searches for a tremor in his voice, a quiver or crack, something emotive. His stomach churns, disgusted by his own composure, by his even tone, his detachment. He can’t even assign a real emotion, not sounding suspicious or bothered, irked or acerbic, hearing only disembodying apathy ring in his words. His heart pounds in his chest, if only to prove to himself he has one. That makes it worse.

David wavers, on step fourteen, reluctance disrupting his contrived pace. Kyle’s differing scales derailed his tempo, notes incompatible with his melody, forcing him to stop and rethink. Kyle feels the wind blowing from the vent affixed on the ceiling, from the air conditioner to his side, but the room is so still, breath suspended, asphyxiating. He lifts his head, considering, considering turning and looking, looking at David, David with his suitcase, just as easily ready to go. Besides, most of the stuff in the car belonged to him, any of the appliances or knick-knacks purchased with their shared funds completely replaceable. If he wanted, David could turn around, exit through the lobby, and just drive off, drive away and save himself, be freed of the toxins imbued in his touches and the poison lining his lips.

A thud, however, proclaims a different choice, the choice to disguise his uncertainty, refuse to end it here, end it now. With step fifteen, David assures that he will stay, with step sixteen, guarantees this night they’ll share a bed. Kyle chews the interior of his cheek, pensive, wistful, curious as to why, why he even tries, why he grapples with feelings unreciprocated, with Kyle jaded, when he gains nothing, nothing but lack, and lack, and lack. Seventeen and eighteen, nineteen and twenty, twenty-one and –two, he marches with the banner of a lost cause. That’s his fault too, Kyle supposes, because if he wasn’t so selfish, he’d tell him it was over, spare him any more torture, but apparently he knows no mercy.

David sighs, low from the back of the throat, leaden with resignation, a dispassionate caress brushing the back of Kyle’s neck. His hoodie shields him from his body heat, from his warmth, from the reminder of the ice he will never thaw; but David stands behind him, present for someone basically absent. Kyle opens and closes his left hand, some denim balled in his fist, then he feels two gentle hands, curving around his forearms. Palms slide up to his shoulders, flattening the extra fabric against his skin, and fingers knead. Kyle wishes he could melt into the massaging motions, enjoy David’s futile attempts, but guilt saturates his tendons, dulling him like doses of novocaine, to curb his own passive sadism.

“I thought I left the trunk open,” He talks judiciously, cautiously, the way the bomb squads on primetime crime dramas discuss defusing explosives. So naïve, expecting words to make him denote, thinking he can cough out a spark and ignite his fury. Kyle misses the days when David really could, get him angry, get him fierce, get him hot. He’d hate to know how lukewarm and tepid he makes him, “And even after I made sure I had to make sure everything was still there.”

 _Bullshit,_ Kyle thinks, _bull-shit_. He personally yanked each door handle, pulled on the trunk, appeased his own anxieties over leaving things unlocked. David just had to step out, ask himself why he still cared about someone so vitriolic, so corrosive, so brimming with spite and sadness. He had to re-examine his logic again, for some ungodly reason concluding that he couldn’t abandon Kyle, because he’s just that kind of person, a _good_ person. Good people do stupid things, and that’s how they spoil and rot and go _bad_ ; Kyle knows for a fact.

“There’s not a lotta theft around here,” Palms rub ovals over his shoulder blade, burrowing impressions into rock, an endless erosive process. Kyle always had a few spikes, some quills that guarded him from harm, but he lost all his smoothness. Porcupines and sea urchins have less points than him, “Y’know, small town, everyone knows everyone, that sorta thing.”

“Yeah, but we’re just visiting,” The gravity is lost on him, unaware or merely ignoring the meanings he implies. David forgets, quite often, that not everybody hates where they were born, not everyone reviles where they were raised. Maybe it works differently for people from places like Boise, but for little dumps like South Park, people end up tangled in the roots.

True, Kyle did hate it here, growing up, all the weirdness and the tedium and the gossip and the atrophy. He spent most of his teenage years planning what he’d do beyond the town limits, the successful life he’d have on the outside of the prison made of friendly faces and humble folks, without the ample parking day and night or people shouting _howdy neighbour_ , somewhere that just was not South Park, Colorado. Then, Kyle got out, and spent almost five years with an address that didn’t include those two words. He got out and learned that the things on the other side weren’t as grand as he and the others imagined, that things could be just as fucked up there as they could be here, that his childhood hometown actually wasn’t the worst place on earth.

David only lived here a few years, moving with his family for high school. After he graduated, his parents used money saved to franchise, relocated to Pueblo, plopped a few other restaurants around the state. He didn’t leave his mother’s womb in Hell’s Pass Hospital, wait for Ms Crabtree at the bus stop, sit through two grades of Mr then Ms then Mr Garrison’s classes. This town isn’t a part of him, not like it’s a part of Kyle. Whether he feels pride or shame or agitation or hatred towards this place, South Park is home. At least, he thinks it is, it’s the only one he’s ever known.

Hands work closer to the spine, pinching his collar. He tries to sooth but doesn’t realise how he slices, embeds precise microscopic cuts in Kyle’s wounds, reopening the same scab in five places, but the punctures too small for blood to ooze from, each one painless but aggravating, a nuisance more than anything. David can’t hurt him the way _he_ hurts him.

“Just until the reunion,” He continues, in a hushed whisper, “Then you start your Masters.”

In Kyle’s first draft of his future, he plotted an MA immediately after his Bachelors’ completion. By the time he actually finished undergrad, keenly cognisant of his shortcomings, he elected to a break from academia, retreated to an internship with a modest stipend. Professors told him it was healthier, that too much time in classes did more harm than good at times. His parents didn’t quarrel, prioritising his happiness and wellbeing. David appreciated it, no longer nervous about leasing in two cities or commuting an hour between universities. A year later, CU: Denver would still offer a Master of Science in Historic Preservation, whenever Kyle chose to apply.

“That’s if they accept me,” Admissions are rolling, but only rarely do they accept applicants as late as him, ones who submit their portfolios on summer’s horizon. His GRE scores and professional recommendations may not matter, if the director deems him unfit. Emailing the department, yesterday evening, apologising for not turning paperwork in sooner, Kyle wondered if his application was already in someone’s recycle bin.

“They will, don’t worry.”

Kyle barely hears him, scarcely catches what’s spoken right to his ear. His eyes move back to his clothes, his meticulously organised clothes. Every time he packs them, he sorts them into tidy sections, with a pile for his graphic tees and a pile for his light jackets, a stack for his crappy sweats and a stack for his pressed pants. He orders them, ensures order in this one facet, one facet of his life. Sure, maybe it just makes it a little easier to find clothes, just helps him coordinate his wardrobe some, just enables a sharper outfit every now and then, but shit like that can mean the world—mean the _goddamn motherfucking world_ —when twenty milligrams of escitalopram just doesn’t level the shakes, when a couple capsules of sleeping medication just doesn’t ease the tension, when three glasses of vodka and orange juice just doesn’t curb the edge.

_Non, non, ne bois pas cette merde dégoûtante. Je déteste le go_ _û_ _t du jus d’orange._

Green eyes narrow into slits, Christophe’s voice cooing in his head, his gross accent greasing an already rude language. Kyle searches for focus, in the heap of clothes, hopes that, if he glares hard enough, he’ll banish the distractions. He pointlessly looks for a way to avoid, but he can’t. Nothing can keep this from happening because this—the loss of concentration, the wandering thoughts, the remembrance of what should be forgotten—keeps _happening_. The linear sequence of time shatters, a lapse forming under David’s fingers, and Kyle peers down the crack, into another place, a place that should be the past, but isn’t. Twenty-three year old Kyle glowers at twenty year-old Kyle, cocky know-it-all Kyle, slutty student Kyle, _vulnerable idiot_ Kyle.

_No, don’t have screwdriver, Kyle, or he won’t fuck you, Kyle! Do what he says, Kyle, or he won’t love you, Kyle! Do what he wants, Kyle, or he’ll smash your head against a wall and use you to break the coffee table and do what he wants to you whether you like it or not, Kyle!_

He lurks as a spectre within an echo, caught haunting the site of his mistakes, memories unfolding as current events. He can’t make what happened _un_ -happen, can’t erase things etched in stone and scarred in flesh; but every time he hears that voice again, he tries to, to change what he said, to correct how he thought, to undo what can never be undone. His lips form the vowels and consonants, the ones he regrets holding in, but barely grants them air when they escape his mouth, cloaking them in rushed breaths, _“I’ll drink whatever I goddamn want.”_

_“Kyle?”_

David’s hands move lower, between the shoulder blade and spine, his natural dominance causing him to favour the left, push harder, harder against…

_Rouge cerise, rouge cerise, pour mon petit oiseau, mon cœur cendrier, marques de rouge cerise…_

…against the scars.

His back straightens, upright, poised, vertical, ready to transition into any stance. His hands ball into fists, tight, compact, skin spread thin over white knuckles. His heart accelerates, pounds, bangs, beats, frenzied in his ribcage. Kyle whips around, as smouldering cherries of cigarettes sear his skin, hot cinders branding blooming flowers on his back, leaving marks that burn and burn and burn even now, without a flame, with just an ill-informed touch, a lack of warning, a mistake.

Kyle blinks, and David stares, hands up, motionless. Fear, that’s what he sees, in those brown eyes, utter helpless fear. Kyle terrifies him, not because of what he does every day, but because of what he’s been through, what he’s seen, what’s been done to him. He doesn’t even know much, only the essential, the necessary, the most minimal information he could possibly provide. He gets scared, because he thinks that when he activates those finite triggers, that he scares Kyle.

He will never understand that nothing he does will resemble Christophe’s reign of terror, that Kyle will never mistake them. No, he isn’t afraid of _Le Bogeyman_ , he stopped after that day. What David doesn’t get is that he doesn’t feel it, just experiences it, when everything gets too crammed, and all the compartmentalised boxes in his head tumble off the shelves, bring him back to those flashes of touch and smell and sound and sight and taste and pain. It happened too long ago, for him wield any vestige of control over him. David gives him power, when he looks at Kyle like a frightened victim, a charity case in need of desperate aid, someone so hurt they could never inflict it onto another, even though inflicting harm is all Kyle ever does to him.

The tip of his tongue presses to the roof of his mouth, and blood absorbs adrenaline. Erratic beats temper back, back to a normal rate, respiration following. He lowers his fists, fingers unfurling, letting arms dangle at his sides. He stows the past’s vibrancy back in its special little safe, and gazes at the pain he wrought.

“Sorry,” Kyle mutters, lowering his voice so David doesn’t hear how mechanical it is. He lifts his hands, taking a half-step forward, to prove that he’s okay, that he’s functional. David doesn’t lower his hands, keeping them up while Kyle lightly cups his face. He strokes his cheeks, fingers running to his jaw, palms sliding along his neck. He rests his hands there, patiently waiting, until David allows himself to relax, put his hands at his side, wipe the horror from his eyes. The brown never goes back to how it was before, but only sleep will dust the last traces into the wind.

Kyle stands, on his tiptoes, bridging the gap between their faces, between their lips. Greedily, he inhales his breath, stealing not only exhales, but his energy, too. He just takes, and takes, and takes, unable to give anything good in return. He licks lips, says into his mouth, “I’m just…”

Hands wrap gingerly around his waist, touching areas he knows are safe. David looks into his eyes, and promises he’ll fuck him. Out of obligation, to make him feel better, he’ll ignore his own feelings, because he believes it will help heal a gash he never tore, never picked at, never opened. Maybe this counts as coercing him, Kyle pressuring him into sex he doesn’t want, because he tricked him into thinking Kyle needs it.

“Tired. I know,” He says, before leaning in the rest of the way, planting soft kisses on his mouth, again, and again, and again. His lips combat the upset he perceives, while his hands strip Kyle of his clothes, while Kyle does the same to him.

But Kyle doesn’t need this, not the way David thinks he does, not for the infantilising reasons the decree he can never overcome his trauma. He wants it, because he craves touch, of lips and hands and tongue and cock, because the only feeling David elicits in him is the satisfaction of an orgasm.

Coercion counts as non-consent, as _assault_ , on the same level as slamming someone into walls and furniture, fucking them as they oscillate in and out of consciousness. David moves in and out of him, under misconceptions, misunderstandings, miscomprehension. Kyle stares up the ceiling, wondering when David will come to his senses. _Soon_ , he tells himself, David will leave him _soon_.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Translations:  
>  _Non, non, ne bois pas cette merde dégoûtante. Je déteste le goût du jus d’orange. = No, no, don't drink that disgusting shit. I hate the taste of orange juice._  
>  Rouge cerise, rouge cerise, pour mon petit oiseau, mon cœur cendrier, marques de rouge cerise… = Cherry red, cherry red, for my little bird, my ashtray heart, marks of cherry red... 
> 
> I apologise for the delay on this chapter, but I think you from reading it you understand why it took so long. Well, that and I'm in academic hell most of the time. I really hope that you enjoyed this chapter, and will keep up with the story. I appreciate everyone who has been supportive of the first chapter alone, and hope you'll stick around to see how this develops! Introductions are really hard! Thank you, and hope to see you read/kudos/comment more in the future!


	3. Track 3

Growing up, Kenny never got much in terms of home-cooked breakfasts. No, he was lucky to grab a cold Pop-Tart on his way out the door, hoping he didn’t grab one cracked in half or nibbled on by mice. Those days he’d pray, pray that his doped up ma and hungover pop didn’t see him shove an extra toaster pastry in his pocket. The bad days were when he got caught, when Stuart or Carol grabbed him by the wrist, reprimanding him for stealing _their_ food, ensuring he got an earful before kicking him out the door, the grumbling of his stomach falling on deaf ears. The good days, though, he slipped out without anyone taking note of his petty larceny, the universe granting him the miniscule bliss of munching on stale sweetened flour, flavoured with artificial brown sugar or industrially produced strawberries, quelling his hunger with the bare minimum provided by the Kellogg Company. Those walks to the bus stop were sweet enough to make him forget, forget about the paper bag in his backpack, the one storing his simple lunch: two slices of bread, a translucent sliver of bland turkey, and an empty cup he’d fill with tap water at a fountain. Poverty wasn’t pretty, but Kenny never went _hungry_ , whether he slurped his nutrition out of a Cup of Noodles or enjoyed the rare delicacy of frozen waffles.

At home, Kenny always ended up with enough to eat, but _just_ enough, never any more, but never any less. All the other mothers took pity on him, though, gave him extra food when he went over to their sons’ houses. They brought out bowls of Cheesy Poofs and platters of pizza rolls, trays of mozzarella sticks or buckets of Kentucky Fried Chicken, whatever they had stored for company came out onto the coffee table. A part of him hated it, despite the good intentions; he hated feeling like a charity case. His friends never really noticed, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman all thanking their mothers out of contrived politeness, without understanding how much they had. After all, at ages eight or nine or ten, kids take all the shit their parents provide for granted.

Kenny still remembers those mornings, with the four of them waiting at the bus stop, when they’d all chat and bicker and joke and argue; Kenny licked his hidden lips as he inhaled the aromas of their mothers’ cooking, the scents of food already in their bellies, the traces of maternal love Kenny seldom received. Stan talked with chocolate chip pancakes, always served lathered in the thickest maple syrup, with a few careful daubs of butter turning the flat surface into a smiling face. He talked with breakfast potatoes, sometimes russet and sometimes golden. He talked with 2% milk and a piece of buttered toast. Kyle spoke with fresh lox, a thin salmon fillet on a bed of cream cheese, all snuggled between two halves of a toasted bagel. He spoke with eggs sunny side up, lightly peppered but heavily salted. He spoke with pulp free orange juice and an occasional granola bar. Cartman talked with brioche French toast, drizzled with the most sugary frosting, always crowned with a tower of whipped cream. He talked with sizzled bacon, graciously greased and obviously fattening. He talked with two bowls of cereal and a scoop of double fudge ice cream. They all spoke with someone’s heart and someone’s soul pledged to their well-being, unaware that there were kids who went without. They were just kids, though, they didn’t know any better.

Kenny’s not a kid anymore. According to the state, he’s a goddamn _adult_. Adults can all the _fun_ stuff, like buy copious amounts of alcoholic beverages, or vote inexperienced shitheads into presidential office, or stockpile semi-automatic shotguns and Kalashnikov assault rifles. But wait, there’s more! Adults get other special privileges too, like _mortgages_ , and _insurance payments_ , and _bills_.

So many fucking bills.

They stare him down, all the letters, scattered on the table. There’s one for electricity, one for gas, one for water and one for cable. There’s another for internet, for air-conditioning, for phone service, even for the goddamn garbage removal. Statement after statement, with dollar signs and numbers and decimal points, amounts added and added and added into one grand total. Then there’s the due by date, pay at least this minimum amount, or else. Or else things start shutting off, credit line goes down the shitter, and the poverty line creeps closer and closer, the darkness of his childhood come back again.

A thick glaze coats his eyes, the kind that doesn’t peel off with just a few blinks of the eye. No, it’s like a cataract, sprinkled on in the night, by vindictive Mr Sandman, seeking to punish those keeping an irregular sleep schedule. His body doesn’t follow one of those, his circadian rhythm synced not with the cycle of day and night, but with the dates of payment. Because living is expensive, costs tied with every breath, totals owed tallying up and up and up with every inhale, exhale, gasp and cough. The wrinkles in his brain form dollar signs, and the occasional clogged pore are decimal points. These mornings, before his alarm even sounds, he opens his eyes well aware of the date, whether it’s the first Tuesday or the third. Those mornings—these mornings—are always the hardest, hardest to get up. Because being an adult is one thing, but actually _adulting_ is a fucking _bitch_.

Kenny hasn’t been doing it even been doing it all that long. He never had a bank account until the case, until he needed proof of assets, to present his worth as a potential guardian to the state. For their first meeting as lawyer and client, the preliminary collecting bones for the skeleton of a legally sound argument, Gerald asked Kenny to meet him at the Broflovski house. A more personal environment, Gerald said, more comfortable than going over things in a stuffy firm office, sitting crowded by over-stuffed manila folders and towers of supposedly-important miscellany, and familiar too. No, instead Kenny sat in Gerald’s private study, in a nice chair, knee bouncing up and down, up and down, chewing on the inside of his cheek as knots tied and tied and tied in his stomach. The cushions moulded to his back, but his muscles were too taut to feel its assurances, his mind too preoccupied with the gravity of his wistful hope truly becoming a reality. As Gerald brought up files on his desktop, filling the air with a melody of swift clacks and furious clicks, Kenny reverted to a taciturn disposition, just like the one he held throughout elementary school, when he hid behind his hood, muffling the few words he spoke.

The printer came to life, lighting up as it churned out fresh documents, when Gerald swivelled to face Kenny. Genuine concern, that’s what he saw, etched on his face, imbued in his eyes. Sure, Kyle mentioned more than a few times how his dad could be an asshole, how his dad trolled countless forums on the internet and photo-shopped dicks into people’s mouths; but right then, when he leaned back in his chair, tugged his lips into a modest smile, he showed every shred of kindness, every ounce of caring, that Kenny never saw in his parents’ eyes.

“Now I’m doing this _pro bono_ , Kenny,” His voice was stern, matter-of-fact. Not in that hoity-toity lawyerly way—no, not at all—he switched into dad mode, talking to him the way he would his own family, his own sons. When other people tried to play Kenny’s father figure, they always ended up just patronising him, pretending they could fix his ‘daddy issues’ or erase his ‘childhood trauma’, treating his life more like a prostitute’s backstory than anything else. But Gerald didn’t do that, he understood what everyone else failed to: Kenny’s not just the poor kid, living in the ghetto with a junkie mom and drunkard dad. He’s a person, a whole one, not smashed up train wreck, just in need of a little help. “I’m not charging you and if you incur _any_ fees from this case, _I’ll_ take care of them _personally_.”

His eyes met Kenny’s, directly, and paused. He paused as Kenny’s eyes widened at the notion, paused as he saw through the blue a rebuke forming in the back of his mind. Kenny’s lips quavered, but before a word of protest could escape, Gerald’s gaze sharpened. He pursed his lips, and in his expression Kenny read the terms, all of them non-negotiable. _Stubborn_ , Kenny thought, just like his son; no way to dissuade him, not when he had his mind set. He’d had enough arguments with Kyle over far less important things—borrowing a few bucks to buy a movie ticket, copying algebra homework a couple minutes before class—Kenny gulped down his disapproval, and saved his breath. He nodded, docile but reluctant, accepting what he felt were far too gracious of services.

Intensity left Gerald’s eyes, his features slowly softening. He always had wrinkles on his face, light scars from the stressful cases, but this was when they really started showing, when the crows started stamping their feet into the corners of his eye, when the frowns started pinching his eyebrows together. How much deeper would they get because of Kenny’s little family? Kenny didn’t know, but Gerald didn’t care. He folded his hands over his stomach, and asked, simply, “Do you have a bank account?”

Kenny snorted, let out a coarse laugh. No, no Kenny _didn’t_ have a bank account, because Stuart didn’t _believe_ in banks. He didn’t believe in a lot of things, but when it came to banks he gave sermons, a regular god-fearing pilgrim chastising the evils of a demonic institution. He gave so many drunken lectures, about how banks took people’s hard earned money, how they spouted lies of safety only to screw their clients over with little trappings, fees hidden in fine print. He barely trusted them to cash the biweekly unemployment cheques addressed to him and Carol. But, as soon as they got their meagre allocations from the den of corruption, the two of them immediately blew every goddamn cent on their additions. Banks stole money and that was wrong, but Stuart had no qualms with robbing his children. It didn’t matter if Kevin needed a new chain for his bike, or if Kenny needed another cord for his phone charger, or if Karen needed a replacement bulb for her Easy-Bake oven; Stuart and Carol’s needs always came before their children’s.

That’s why any money Kenny earned he hid, hid from his mother, hid from them, from his father. He shoved each crumpled dollar and lucky penny into an old sock, then tied the end in a lumpy knot. He’d fling the heavy sack into a beaten shoe box, then stow it amongst the box springs of his mattress. He’d done that ever since he turned ten years old, knowing full well that only through such secrecy would those precious coins and paper bills actually go towards something useful, something that could make the life of his family—of him, of his brother, of his sister—easier.

Kenny’s laugh hung in the air, like stale beer stench. The bitterness in its timbre sufficed, watching Gerald’s lips curve downward, disappointed. That twitch of a frown made Kenny stiffen, made him bit his bottom lip, lean back in his chair. He watched Gerald’s shoulders sag, eyes dulling, in a strangely knowing way. Kenny knew the story: once upon a time, Gerald and Stuart were best friends, two teenage boys working shifts at a pizza joint, kings of small town shenanigans. But then Gerald went off to community college, and from there transferred after his AA, went to law school, and made something of his life, all the while Stuart drove his own into the ground. They maintained a tenuous friendship, for their sons, but the frail thread connecting them thinned and thinned under the strain, the strain that came as they all got older, as Stuart got worse.

Gerald never figured out why Stuart’s episodes spiked just before the arrest, just a few weeks after the start of the boys’ senior year. He spent all summer scratching his head, and admitted more than a few times that he just didn’t understand. Was it the alcohol? The amphetamines? The opioids or the black tar heroin? He never connected all the dots.

Then again, no one did, because Kenny kept a lot of them hidden. While everyone else only saw his father’s lifestyle, all its destructive strands, they never saw the full picture, saw just what his father’s worst tirades centred around, saw _who_ they centred around. If Gerald knew, knew how much hated _him_ —him for making a _faggot_ out of _his boy_ —he could never see him the same way. If he knew just what he said about his son, Gerald would never forgive him. Kenny sure as hell won’t.

“So…” Gerald shifted in his seat. He squared his shoulders, straightened his back, sat tall. He puts a hand on the arm of his chair as he leaned forward, “Do you have any money that’s yours? _Just_ yours?”

Kenny cocked a brow, a smirk forming on his face. He felt himself finally loosen, as a sparkle came to his eye, “Sure, I got maybe five hundred somethin’ under my mattress. S’long as ya don’t mind it smellin’ like feet.”

Aloud, it sounded stupid, something that’d sound cute coming out of the mouth of an eight year old child, but fucking sad coming out the mouth of an eighteen year old boy. But before the embarrassment touched him, Gerald burst into loud, boisterous laughter. The corners of his eyes crinkled as he smiled, and his heel kicked one of the wheels of the swivel chair. Not a trace of malice rang in those chuckles, nothing sarcastic or snide; Kenny laughed along with him. At first it was nervous, awkward, but as he let more laughs spill from his lips, the tension left his body. His mind eased, inhaling strange new optimism, the type of hope he thought only existed in the eyes of a child, something he thought he grew out of, a long time ago.

Gerald finally let out a deep sigh, “Five hundred’s a good amount to open. Meet you at the bank tomorrow at three?”

That night, when Kenny got home, he darted straight for his room, digging up his savings so he could count it all up, include every crumbled bill, and every musty coin. Then, he scoured through every garment he owned, cannibalising his wardrobe, salvaging an outfit that’d be ‘clean’ and ‘smart’, ‘dressy’ and ‘professional’, something that advertised him as a trustworthy and reliable lender, not an irresponsible and unnecessary risk. He found his hand-me-down tuxedo—the blue monstrosity he inherited from his father, an example of the frumpy fashion of the dark times of 1980-something—and took the pair of baby blue slacks. He unearthed his ‘stagehand’ uniform—keepsake from the sophomore musical, when Bebe roped him into sitting backstage and providing vocals for the tone deaf Bradley Biggle so her show would be a success—and grabbed the navy button-up. He recovered an old Halloween costume—the year he went as a dapper male stripper, worn only at Heidi Turner’s festive ‘Back from the Dead (Return to Twitter)’ bash—and picked the red bow tie. With an added pair of underwear, he slapped all the clothes together, into something somewhat mismatched, but fairly workable. The next day, he walked all the way to the bank, with a grand total of five hundred thirty-three dollars and twenty seven cents, all in pocket change and small money.

Boy, did the tellers _love_ him.

Skillets sizzle, pots clatter, oil bubbles and pops. The air thickens, fills with the aromatic scents drifting from the stovetop, dispersing throughout the room and all its open spaces, the sweet scent of a home-cooked breakfast. Diced potatoes left their frozen prison in the freezer, fell into a vat of slick and hot butter, marinating in their creamy bath. Sausage patties lay out on the scorching oil, one side basking in the light of the overhang, the other nicely browning. Perhaps to some—to esteemed chefs and hoity-toity critics—the idea of Jimmy Dean and Ore-Ida insults them, mocks the spirit of the ‘true’ American breakfast, which according to them is absent of such rudimentary bagged tastes. But Kenny doesn’t care about garnishes or aftertastes, doesn’t describe tastes with types of trees. Besides, Karen’s the one cooking them, so it’s _gotta_ be good.

Kenny used to do all the cooking, used to steer Karen away from the kitchen unless she was getting a snack or being served. During the first few months of developing his case, he took it upon himself to take care of all the housework, always telling Karen that she had school to focus on, and he had all the time in the world to focus on the domestic crap. Yeah, it wasn’t easy, and Kenny struggled. Struggled _a lot_ , asking Bebe for recommendations for fabric softeners, needing Kyle to double and triple check his clumsy accounting, calling Stan about how to repair the various blemishes Stuart graciously dented into the walls and doors over the years. But cooking always ended up being the hardest, for some ungodly reason. Maybe it was because he never learned _shit_ in Home Economics, his teacher so appalled by his dare to defy gender norms and take a class aimed at chicks _without_ dicks, refusing to provide any help because of her perception of his _place_ in world, and gladly awarding him a D- to emphasise who she felt _belonged_ in the class. Or maybe it was because he’s always been _accident prone_ , tripping and falling out of the womb a natural _klutz_ , proficient in discovering a new way to fuck something up, and succeeding in creating only the grandest of failures. Lack of skill and finesse aside, Kenny still tried, constantly experimenting with the limited palette of ingredients he had on hand, the generic store brands and the knock offs of big names. But something always went _wrong_ , whether he overcooked or undercooked, charred one side or burnt it all the way through, added too many contrasting flavours or overpowered the dish with just one. The worst went straight into the trash, but the rest wound up on the dinner table, judged decent, edible, but not actually… _good_.

Karen never complained, though, not once. When she got home from school and saw the plates laid out for the two of them, with one big pot of who-knows-what in the middle for them to share, she always smiled, always thank him as she took her seat. Kenny saw through her politeness, when he saw her nose crinkle at the stench coming from his abominable concoctions, or noticed her cringe a little as she stuck her fork into the oddly textured mass. Sometimes, as she took the first bite, she’d flinch, make a momentary face of disgust. Other times, before she even put it in her mouth, she’d hold her breath, mitigating the taste for the sake of her buds. But every time she ate it, ate the whole goddamn thing, even when Kenny knew it tasted like a donkey’s asshole after a week suffering explosive diarrhoea. As the court date ominously approached, Kenny spent less time preparing the table and more time looking over judicial documents, the case looming over him, the fear of the jury saying no constantly threatening him. At some point Karen stopped ordering pizza, started taking over kitchen duty, introducing new recipes found online and supporting her culinary theorems with common sense and logic.

The verdict came down in Kenny’s favour, but he lost his cooking privileges. He suggested more than a few times that he’d make dinner for the two of them, but Karen found a way of beating him to the punch, lying to him about a pre-planned meal or running into the kitchen before him. Her simple schemes to keep Kenny away from the stove eventually boiled down to brutal honesty, Karen telling Kenny he just _can’t_ _fucking_ _cook_. Nowadays, when he brings it up, she tacks on _“And, no, Ken, City Wok_ doesn’t _count.”_

The whisk blends white and yolk, eggs beaten into a nice pulp, scrambled for the skillet. The rhythm she creates accompanies the swift _scritch-scritch-scratch_ ing of a ballpoint pen. With each stroke, a line of ink appears, Kenny sloppily scrawling out the name of the electric company on the thin line of the cheque, Disney Princess themed. Ink stains Cinderella’s circular cartoon face, and Karen hums, hums the tune to some country song, pouring the egg into a slicked skillet while imagining a guitar’s twang.

He follows the melody, the rises and dips in her songbird crooning, flipping through the records in his mind, searching for the name. It’s a game they’ve played, ever since she was six years old, ever since Kenny first started singing, singing to get a little better, instead of only to have a little fun. Karen hums a little something, slowing up tempo, giving Kenny the time to really listen in. She plays mockingbird while he contemplates her song, waiting for the moment of recognition, the epiphany. Then, he opens his mouth, shifts timbre to a dulcet tenor, and belts out the words absent from her lips. He thinks back, flipping through the records in his mind, the artists Karen listens to, the ones the fit the genre, the ones she knows he’ll know too. He scribbles out the full numerical total, once in words and once in numbers, as Karen stirs the eggs through the first verse, drifts into the chorus, the dead giveaway Kenny recalls instantly.

“Just call me _angel_ , a _mor-ning an-gel_ ,” His voice harmonises, harmonises with the soft but soulful tune, signing his name and singing his song, “Just _touch my cheek_ before you _leave_ _me_ , _bay-by_.”

_K-E-N-N-Y_ , the script lengthens with the elongated notes, each letter stretching out to match the emphasised lyric. Yeah, he still remembers when he was six and a half years old, when he first heard the song playing, on the record player Carol dug up from the garage. Or maybe it was one of the trash heaps around the house, dumped off by folks who didn’t care to walk the rest of the way to the dump, felt like their place was close enough. Somehow she got her hands on a gramophone; how’s not that important.

_“Just call me angel…”_

_J_ , a swift calligraphic stroke, standing for the middle name blotted out on his birth certificate. Karen giggles, deviating from the instrumental, but Kenny still hears it just fine, hears it in his memory, as the needle traces over the grooves of the vinyl. Carol had a collection of them, treasures from her girlhood: Johnny Cash and Reba McEntire, Loretta Lynn and George Strait, Kenny Rogers and the Allman Brothers Band. She pulled each cherished disc from its sleeve, caring not whether it was seven inches or twelve, only that they’d play, play for her, play for her children.

_“A mor-ning an-gel…”_

_M-C-C-O-R_ , his attention wavers, scrunching up his surname into a mesh of loops and curves. Carol taught her kids to love those songs, because everyone in a backwater hick town was at least a little bit country. But it was the way she smiled that made him really love those redneck anthems, her whole face lighting up, like she was a teenager listening to them on the radio for the very first time, all over again. It was one of the rare moments when she didn’t look like she needed a fix.

_“Then slowly, turn away…”_

_M-I-C-K_ , those are what it ought to read, legibility questionable. That Juice Newtown record snapped in five places, when Stuart hurled it across the living room. Kenny was just shy of eight years old, when he saw all the pieces strewn across the floor. Then he looked to his mother and saw, in her eyes, that she broke in five places, too. She broke because, in the man she called darling, she saw the devil. But what really broke her was realising how often she’d seen him, but just didn’t say anything, because she didn’t want to accept it.

_From me…_

His voice trails off, before the final words, but he thinks them, thinks them clear and solemn, like a prayer. Carol used a whole lot more after that, used because it was the only way she could cope. She buried herself in the drink and the drugs, and left her children to fend for themselves. A lot of people blamed her, said she abandoned her kids, but she was desperate, and desperate people do things they’re not always proud of. Carol taught him how to do that, too.

An oil bubble crackles and pops, and salt and pepper sprinkle onto eggs; one shake for salt, one shake for pepper, another for salt, another for pepper, and Karen says, with breathless laugh, “I was _wonderin’_ if you weren’t too busy for a _sing-song_.”

She flips a patty over, meat meeting metal with a gust of steam, and, in their cramped little kitchen, with its poor ventilation, the aroma hits him. Through his nose, he inhales, inhales that tantalising _oh-so-close-to-done_ smell, pork and grease mingling with potato and peppercorns. Kenny absently thumbs over the clicker of the ballpoint pen, as the water builds in his mouth.

“Oh, _I’m_ sorry,” He cocks his head to the side. He abandons transparent pastel flowers and dark ink lines, refreshing his eyes with the earthy tones of the kitchen: moss green, sandy taupe, ashtray grey and chicken-bone white. His eyes fall on tawny hair, pulled into two messy pigtails, and he casually drawls, “I thought ya wanted to have _hot showers_ ‘n _clean clothes_ next month.”

A huffy laugh, and Karen moves a hand to the cupboard. The hinges squeak and whine, as she opens it just enough to grab a pair of chipped plates from their perch. The dishes clatter when she sets them down, down carefully on the cluttered countertop, precariously close to the edge. From the drying rack, she rummages through, retrieving some forks and knives, and setting them on the plates’ edges. She lifts the lid of the pot, peaking at the fries, then quickly turns the burner off, one neat click of the dial cutting off the gas flame. She reaches for the other one, to turn down the heat on the sausage, then the eggs, then glances over her shoulder. Freckles sprinkle her cheeks—darker than Kenny’s, more pronounced—but, despite the scintillating shimmer in her big, brown, doe eyes, purpled signs of sleep deprivation ring her lower lashes.

“Since when do bills take _that_ much attention?” Karen asks, half-mockingly, a smirk teasing at her lips. She takes the top plate, then turns her attention back to the stovetop. She slides her spatula under a pair of patties—the crispiest ones, her favourites—and lets them fall on her plate.

Kenny rolls his eyes, leans back in his chair. Two legs lift off the ground, Kenny stretching his legs out to their full length. He plants his bare blistered heels on the tile, just barely keeping his balance. He tucks the pen behind his ear, too lazy to toss it on the table, and folds his hands behind his head. Karen adds home fries and eggs to her plate, then gingerly switches it for the second. _Plop_ , _plop_ , three _plops_ of compact little sausage discs, then he says, voice low, touch rough, “Got a lot on my mind today. Tha’s’all.”

“I can tell,” Clumps of white and yellow tumble from an angled pan onto the plate, Karen allocating him most of the eggs. She stacks the two skillets, moves them both to the only unused burner with only a couple clanks, then starts her graciously scooping a few helpings of home fries. From the corner of his eye, Kenny sees Karen glance over, between her spoonfuls overflowing with diced up taters. Her trying to be a mom, pulling a trick she learned from movies and television, because she got sick of her brothers playing parents and tried to get in on the gig as well. He hates that she does that, “Have you even had a _sip_ o’ coffee yet, Ken?”

His eyes flicker to the table, to the mug of Tweek Bros Dark Roast, sitting beside his phone, untouched and undoubtedly lukewarm. In the serene pool of brown, he catches his reflection, distorted and refracted in the caffeinated crack. His hair sticks up in all directions, typical tousled mess worsened by a night of five hours bad sleep. At the base of his jaw, only on the right side, a prickly patch of stubble taunts him, a spot missed in his bleary eyed shaving. His eyes still sport dark circles, unfading and unrelenting, advertising his eternal state of exhaustion. Coffee is supposed to help with that; drink some coffee to add a pop to the eyes, make them wider, make them brighter, so maybe nobody notices how goddamn draining it is just to breathe air.

Kenny used to hate coffee. The only way he ever got it down in high school was with a good five creams, then another six or seven sugars. He made sure it was so milky and sweet that he never tasted the bitter edge, the _flavour_ that so many self-proclaimed connoisseurs adored. He can’t remember when he stopped dousing his drinks with sweeteners, when he stopped pouring 2% in his cups, when he started drinking it bleak, drinking it black. They say it’s an acquired taste, but he doesn’t think he has it; he still doesn’t like coffee, but he drinks the shit black anyway. Why does he still fucking drink it?

Both plates in her hands, Karen slowly spins around. Her vigilant eyes watch the clusters of food, in case her movements stir them too much and send stray fries or a clean fork or even a whole sausage to the floor. She puts one foot forward, headed to the table, and Kenny reaches for his mug. Fingers loop around the handle, pull the cup toward his lips. The coffee sloshes, side to side, waves crashing against ceramic, ripples obscuring the refracted images. A couple drops fall, hit Kenny’s leg in cool splashes, two on his boxers, one on his skin. They seep into the fabric of his boxers, adding another coffee stain to the Batman logo pattern, and he puts the rim to his lips. Cheap coffee smell prepares him for cheap coffee taste; he takes a gulp.

Karen sets her plate down at her seat, just at Kenny’s right. She used to always sit to his left, when it was the five of them; she sat on Kenny’s left, with Kenny as the barrier between her and their father. Childish, really, how he thought so young that he could protect her from everything, be her tireless protector, her crusading superhero, her guardian angel. And it worked for a while, when they were both small, when the biggest threats to her wellbeing were rowdy sixth graders and shallow cliques. But then Kenny started losing more and more fights, started getting hurt more and more often. Karen’s always been the sharp—she knew from the start that Kenny wasn’t indestructible—but after Kevin shipped off eastward, after Carol got sent to La Vista, after Stuart wound up in Sterling Correctional, she adopted the same defensive stance Kenny had towards her. Guess that’s what happens when most of the family ends up overseas, in prison, or good as dead.

Kenny takes another sip of coffee, doesn’t swallow, lets the taste sit on his tongue. He leans forward, chair banging on the tile, leaving superficial scuffs. He puts his mug down, out of the way, then carelessly pushes the statements aside, to another part of the modest table, helping Karen economise the little space they have. He slaps close the faux leather booklet, as she lowers the plate easily in front of him, nudging his phone just a bit. The knife rolls off, clinks against the table, as Karen sits down. She grabs her knife and fork, when Kenny finally swallows.

He takes his fork, turns it to the side. Rather than use the knife at his disposal, he hacks at the glob of scrambled eggs, severing the attachments of the larger masses, splitting them into a collection of haphazard lumps. Then, he rakes up two of them—one gangly, the other just large—and shoves it in his mouth. There must be something wrong with the shakers, because every day it tastes more and more peppery, only subtle hints of salt.

“Shoulda guessed you’d be distracted today,” Karen speaks like a breeze, airy and light. She starts cutting up her sausage, splitting it up into manageable bites, the ridged knife edge occasionally scrapping the bottom of the dish, “You’re seein’ Stan ‘n Kyle, right?”

Still chewing, Kenny bobs his head, “Meetin’—”

“ _Ah_ ,” Karen raises her fork, aiming the little slice of sausage at her brother’s mouth. She swishes it from side to side, a little witch waving her pronged magic wand. Then, with a little pout, “Not with your mouth open.”

Kenny stares, momentarily stupefied by her spell. She rarely polices manners, at least in a genuinely mean way; she always does it just to push buttons. But, like a good sibling, Kenny has to push back. He chews once, twice more, completely silent, eyes flitting between Karen and the sausage. With a hard gulp, he swallows down the egg, then seizes the moment; he opens his mouth, darts his head forward.

Karen’s eyes widen, instantly pulling back her fork. Annoyance flashes on her face, furrowing her brows as she groans, _“Keeeen, groooooss!”_

Short laughs leave his throat, chopping up his breathing with staccato chuckles. Kenny leans back, grinning as Karen eagerly eats her sausage, savouring the glower sharpening her eyes. She chews, swallows, then sticks her tongue out at him. True McCormick fashion.

Kenny twists the fork in his fingers, thoughtfully, before reverting it to a weapon, stabbing into the grouping of home fries. He breaks up a pile, a few pieces rolling unscathed to the side, others nursing shallow injuries, lifts a few hunks skewered on his fork. He keeps his eyes on his food, as he goes on, slow and leisurely, “Meetin’ Stan at the bus stop after brekky.”

“Bus stop?” She echoes, tone softened by a hint of confusion. Kenny glances at her face, catching a quizzical expression cross her features, a few traces of disappointment in her eyes. She always gets excited when he has friends over, likes seeing them, even if they only acknowledge her existence as the kid sister. It’s probably because of all the stories he told her, back when they were little, of all the mischief and mayhem wrought by his little cohort of like-minded delinquents. Every good word Kenny’s spoken about them—well Stan and Kyle at least, Cartman not so much—compiled in her mind, creating a masterpiece of the best friends anyone could ask for.

“Yeah, somethin’ ‘bout not having ‘nough gas ‘n not wanting to get it ‘n the ghetto or some shit,” Because of the _prices_ , Stan’s text reassured him, because the closest station hikes up the price a good half a dollar. Sure, everyone knows they do that because they’ve been dealing crack out the backend since the Clinton era, but that surely has _nothing_ to do with his _purely financial_ decision, “But I’ll get ‘is ‘n Wendy’s asses over here soon enough.”

“And she’s having the baby, too,” Karen adds, with a beaming smile.

“Well according to Stanny boy if the kid pops out for dinner in the next few months they’re gonna have a problem,” Kenny says, snide undertone souring his words. He quickly shoves the fries in his mouth, hoping Karen didn’t notice the salt coating his voice.

On so, so many levels, he can’t be happier for Stan, Stan who spent the majority of high school more afraid of accidental pregnancy than anything else. He’s grown up a lot, enough to mostly accept the idea of having a mini Marsh wandering the streets of South Park. Sure, they probably don’t like that Hell’s Pass will be the hospital issuing the birth certificate, hope they won’t enrol their kid in the same nursery they met in, but they’ll have a family larger than just the two of them. Even now, with only the two of them, they _work_ together, on some fundamental level, cooperating despite their quirks. But Kenny would be lying if he said he wasn’t jealous, jealous that he found the person who compliments all his weak points, who puts up with all his bad habits, who really is his better half.

Happy endings are for fairy tales, that’s what he always heard, always thought. But then people started getting happy endings around him—school, jobs, relationships—and he started realising that they _do_ happen, but only to a certain kind of people. Karen’s one of them—one of them _good_ people—she _deserves_ one of those. But Kenny…?

Karen lightly kicks her feet, fuzzy socks tapping the side of his leg. She finishes another bite of sausage, then starts toying with the scrambled eggs, raking them up with her fork. After she swallows, she yawns, one of those petite little kitten sorts, and asks, “So are you meeting Kyle there too?”

Kenny trades his fork for the mug handle, going for another sip of coffee. As he raises the mug to his lips, holding his breath to avoid the stench, he shakes his head, “Nah, gotta pick ‘im up from the hotel.”

“I think Shelia mentioned that a week or so ago,” She says, thinking aloud, as he takes his sip—longer this time—coffee running down his throat in a smooth rivulet. Karen pokes the little clump of eggs, recalling the details, “Yeah, she said something like him and David not having the lease dates synced up right.”

The rivulet overflows, a twitch of the wrist unleashing a torrent, gushing like a waterfall. Surprise overtakes him, nose sharply inhaling, opening up a new path for the cascading coffee; because nothing screams _wakeup call_ like _grinds in the windpipe_. He straightens up with a jolt, hacking out hoarse, deep coughs. His whole insides saturate with that stupid bitter taste.

“Yeah,” Kenny manages out, his eyes flickering to Karen’s wide, worried gaze. He flashes a simper, but he isn’t sure how much it’s to assure her, and how much it’s to hide his own cynicism. He sets down the mug, clears his throat, lets out a sigh, “Stan ‘n I gotta go ask have to go up to David ‘n get on our knees ‘n go ‘ _Pretty please can we steal your boyfriend? We promise we won’t get ‘im in too much trouble_.’”

A joke, Karen laughs, bell-like giggles. But it’s not as much of a joke as she thinks, not that much of a humorous exaggeration, not really. Honestly, Kenny barely knows a lot about him. In high school they knew each other, acted friendly in that polite sort of way, worked together in a large social group even if their interaction was limited. But all of those adolescent memories meant nothing when Kenny met him again at the reception, formally re-introduced as Kyle’s recent _development_. Kyle explained it before David walked over—they shared a classes, then shared an apartment, then shared a bed—beaming about how nice it was, simple it was, easy, _safe_. The way he said that word— _safe_ , like a promise to himself, a constant reassurance—bothered Kenny, _still_ _bothers_ _him_. but he didn’t say anything, not then, not somewhere with so many people, so many things happening, all at once.

In the blink of an eye David was there, having looked for Kyle all over. He wrapped an arm around Kyle’s waist, as Kyle took the step towards him. Kyle got on his tiptoes, pulled the collar of David’s shirt, and pressed their lips together. One, two, three times, lips speaking through contact rather than voice. Kyle smiled, laughed, rested his cheek on David’s shoulder. He awkwardly manoeuvred his braced arm, returning the embrace to the best of his abilities. David craned his neck, dotted a few chaste kisses on the crown of Kyle’s head, and the smile grew even more. There wasn’t anything wrong, not that Kenny could tell, but there was something… _else_. It existed like a spectre, lurking in the back of his mind, that thinnest air of suspicion. But he ignored it, banished it to the recesses, fearing he knew the ghost of envy too well, knowing drudging up those feelings would only lead to pain. Kyle was happy, and that made him happy. He could never find a problem in Kyle’s laugh.

However, David apparently found a problem with _him_. While Kyle kept his eyes closed, slyly loosened the tie around his neck, David shifted his gaze, eyes moving to Kenny. Every ounce of softness and gentleness, the delicate romantic bliss enlivening the brown, it all disappeared. He brandished a serrated stare, sharp and spiked. All the affection hardened into some brand of intimidation, one vaguely reminiscent of the old timey movies, with their hyper-masculine and overly macho heroes. But he wasn’t aggressive, no, nothing quite so cut and dry. He didn’t view Kenny as a threat, but Kenny recognised that look. Not a threat, just a… _risk_.

“I’m sure it’ll be fine,” Karen says, confidently. She scoops up a couple bits of egg with her fork, raises them to her lips. She hesitates, morning brain fog, before blinking back to alertness, and putting the food in her mouth, with an affirming nod. That makes Kenny smile.

“Yeah…” He speaks as a sigh, heave the acrid flavour from his chest. The scratchiness leaves his throat, his lungs return to normal, but the bitter doesn’t leave. Still, he doesn’t let his grin crack, refusing to let his erosion show. He picks at the scrambled eggs, adds a tune to his voice, “After all, Kyle’s _real_ good at gettin’ what he wants.”

She laughs, and that’s all he needs, needs to stay buoyant, floating, treading water. Five years, Kenny’s been living his life to make sure Karen can live hers, live hers the way she wants to. But she could get along without him, if she really wanted to. She could do better, but she won’t. She won’t because she knows, knows that without her, Kenny really has no one.

Her laughs devolve, from chiming chuckles into another yawn. Kenny watches her lazily take another bite of her sausage, then rolls his eyes, “Y’know, if you need more sleep _I_ can take care of breakfast.”

“ _Pfft_ , fat chance, _bro_.”

“C’mon, you’ve never even _tried_ my _egg foo young_.”

“No but I have tried your _mac n’ cheese_. Y’know, the one you added _soy sauce_ to.”

“ _Okay_ you’re telling me that _Bobby Flay_ can put fuckin’ _chilli powder_ in _everything_ but I can’t add a _lil’_ _umami_ to a _classic_?”

“God, you’d be _lost_ without me.”

She says it as a joke, but it really is true.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Fun fact: This chapter was partly written in three different countries. That fact significantly contributes to why this update was so delayed. Again, thanks for reading--I'm really trying to be more on the ball with updates and postings! I just really appreciate all of you who are reading this story, leaving kudos, or dropping reviews. It's really what makes me the most happy. :)


	4. Track 4

Kyle first learned about sex in fourth grade, way back during that huge push for reproductive education, parents begging the school to talk to their kids about the gross, intimate, tingly things they didn’t want to speak about themselves. For a whole week, boys and girls were separated, sitting in their respective classrooms, hearing all about anatomy and physiology, about hepatitis and HIV, defective premature infants and so-called proper condom use. But between Mr Mackey’s clueless ramblings, Ms Choksondik’s fearmongering rants, the textbook’s sanitised and clinical terminologies, no one figured out a goddamn thing. The classes failed, leaving them—the children—responsible to decode the massive mythos surrounding the strange concept, translate the alien dialect spoken by the chain-smoking teenagers, discover just what that three letter word _really_ meant.

Kenny was the one who told him what it was, imparting on Kyle the all too enlightening wisdom. Maybe Kevin told him about it, older brother sharing the treasured knowledge of the middle schoolers with his too eager baby bro. Or maybe he got his hands on an X-rated film, accidentally or not so accidentally obtaining it from the dying video rental chain. Or he walked in on someone, possibly his parents, possibly some stray dogs in the backyard. Kyle didn’t know how he knew, but Kenny’s the one who made Kyle know, _really_ _know_.

They were walking through the woods, after spending a couple hours throwing snowballs at cars, doing stupid dangerous shit little kids love to do. It was their shortcut, back to the neighbourhood, the easiest way to get to their street before the sun got too low and Shelia started worrying a storm. It was just the two of them, taking that route, because Stan had the flu and there was no way in hell they were sharing their secret path Eric freaking Cartman. That day, considering Stan’s absence, Cartman dragged Butters up the hillside where they played, pronouncing him a part of their party. Kenny’s eyes sharpened, pausing in his snowball crafting; he shot out fierce protests, words muffled by his hood, meaning clarified in his gaze. Kyle agreed, not wanting Butters’ lame reputation tarnishing their free hours of boyish mischief-making. But Cartman was _Cartman_ , always managing to keep things _annoying_ , and he kept Butters knelt at his rotund side. The whole damn time, Cartman’s grating voice filled the air, explaining to his little lackey how the world worked, according to him. Kyle patted clumps of snow into neat round balls, and Kenny made sloppy oblong lumps. Sometimes, he’d lean over to Kyle, motioning to the other two before asking whether or not he should add a rocky core and take a crap shot.

Twigs cracked under their boots, light filtered through the firs and cottonwoods. Kyle’s backpack felt like a brick, stuffed with notebooks and folders, composition books and loose leaf, a Hardly Boys novel and a Trapper Keeper. His hands tightly gripped the straps, to defer some of the weight from his shoulders. Kenny, meanwhile, had his hands shoved in his pocket, balled into fists. The zipper of his book-bag was wide open, revealing his few school supplies: a ragged notebook used for every subject, and a couple random pencils floating amongst unsorted graded homework. Their shadows trailed behind them, stretching with the sun’s slow set.

Kenny stayed quiet, glaring at the dirt and snow before them. He walked with hunched shoulders, taking quick, shuffling steps. Kyle kept glancing at him, from the corner of his eye, seeing blond mixed with brownish fuzz, elegant profile partly obscured by synthetic fabric. Back then they were about the same height, two of the tallest kids in class, Kyle eking in a few tenths of an inch every time Kenny gave in to poor posture. Next year Kyle would beat him by an inch, the year after by three, and the year after that Kenny’s _first_ growth spurt would kick in. But puberty was still a ways away, and Kyle’s mind kept wandering. What he thought about then, he can’t even recall; what _did_ he think about when he was nine?

It didn’t matter what he was thinking about, before, whatever it was escaped him when Kenny spoke. _Sudden_ , it always felt _sudden_ when Kenny broke silences back then. Kyle never understood why; he liked when Kenny talked, _“Tha’s_ not _what it is y’know.”_

Kyle blinked, as the words registered. He traced back in his mind all their day’s conversations, wondering if this was related to what they talked about before. But he couldn’t find a connection, to Hot Wheels cars or Terrance and Phillip, the new X-Men movie or Yu-Gy-Ho trading cards. He turned his head, giving Kenny a confused stare. He quirked a brow, bluntly asking, “What _what_ is?”

He let out a snort, puffs of air made opaque by the Colorado cold. Kenny lifted one foot, then kicked a rock in his path, forcefully, deliberately. The rock shot across the dirt, its jagged faces sending it rolling, swerving to the wayside. Kyle’s eyes flitted to the stone, thinking it a clue, but found no hints. They walked passed, and his gaze returned to Kenny, even more puzzled. That’s when Kenny let out a sigh, rolled his eyes.

“ _Sex_ ,” He groaned, exasperated, like it was the only thing he could possibly be talking about.

Kyle blinked one, two, three times, once for each letter. Yeah, he knew it existed, but didn’t know how it was relevant. He held a blank expression, and Kenny let out another sigh, shaking his head. Bits of tousled blond swept across his forehead, as he muttered something unintelligible under his breath. Then, Kenny quickened his stride, crossed in front of Kyle, turned on his heels. Kyle almost walked right into him, stopping just has the toes of their boots tapped together. He straightened his back, staring straight into those big blue eyes.

“What Fatass said,” Kenny spoke sternly, surely. Even with a cloth barrier between them, it felt like he was spitting those words into his mouth, hacking them up from deep, deep in his chest, Ookie Mouth all over again, only this time it wasn’t so Kyle could get sick, “Th’ _s’not_ what it is.”

Cartman, it was always Cartman. Then he remembered, remembered Cartman droning on, telling Butters all about what _sex_ really was. It was background noise, as far as Kyle was concerned, preoccupied with aiming at the windshield of an incoming Toyota, but he heard the whole spiel. Something about taking a lady and putting a _wee-wee_ inside her somewhere, then taking a good long pee. The more pee-pee in her, the more she likes it, or something like that. It sounded disgusting, uncomfortable, and Kyle tuned out when he got into the details of how much piss ladies wanted. Butters let out an amazed _whoa_ , just as Kyle threw his snowball into traffic. That’s what he was talking about.

“So? Cartman’s a _dumbass_ ,” Kyle shrugged, spine aching from the weight on his back. He cocked his head to the side, leaned back on his heels, “He’s _always_ wrong.”

“But _you_ know what it is, _right_?” His tone was so certain, so firm, _stubborn_. For whatever reason, he _couldn’t_ let this go; he _had_ to talk about how Eric Cartman didn’t know _shit_ about sex, how _he_ knew _so much more_ than him, how he knew more than enough to know _that fat turd was fucking wrong_. It was part of being a kid, being that damn headstrong, everyone was like that once.

But Kyle really didn’t know what it was, not really. Sure, he used those words like _whore_ and _fuck_ , _slut_ and _dick_ , _cock_ and _cunt_ , just like every damn other average elementary schooler. But his grasp of dirty language wasn’t total, with only a superficial understanding of most swears. Everyone knew that they were curses, and adults hated when those words stained the mouths of their innocent angels; that’s why everyone used them, not because they actually knew what they _meant_.

Embarrassment and aggravation coloured his face, pale complexion splashed with shades of red. Kyle Elijah Broflovski, _smartest_ boy in the _whole_ _fourth grade class_ , didn’t _know_ something. He didn’t know but _Kenny_ did, Kenny who goes home with lousy _Cs_ all over his _report card_ and _never_ gets any _stickers_ on the reading list board. The candid petty fluctuations of childhood emotions overwhelmed him, Kyle clenching jaw, narrowing his eyes into slits. Kenny was unfazed.

“ _Dude_ ,” His eyes widened, dumbfounded, by the novelty of knowing something Kyle didn’t. Then, he just started laughing, laughing so hard he took a step back, nearly buckled over. Chuckles spilt from his lips, sound bouncing off the tree trunks, and Kyle wished a wild dog or rabid bear would emerge from a bush and claw his friend to death. Finally, Kenny gasped out, between his laughs, “Don’t you watch _MTV_?”

“ _Ugh_ ,” The groan came from the back of his throat, rumbly and hoarse. Kyle grabbed the green flaps of his ushanka, trying to hide his flaring cheeks as he took the first few steps around Kenny. Each burst of laughter hit him with a punch, beating against his stomach, completely nauseating and practically vomit inducing. He trudged down their unmarked trail with a marching gait, smoke fuming from his ears.

_“C’mon, Kyle,”_ Kenny’s voice called after him, buoyant with humour. Whether it was at his expense or not, Kyle really couldn’t tell, not then. Even that young he was proud, too proud, a trait Kyle struggles with to this day. But little Kyle, no, he was too much of a kid to care, let himself be overtaken by the candid humiliation, turning jokes into jeers to appease his budding self-esteem issues. He pulled his hat down, turtle retreating into a shell, as a few curls peeked into his line of vision. But Kenny didn’t stop, didn’t shut up, saying in sing-song melody, _“Doncha wanna know?”_

“ _Kenny_ , my ma’s gonna _kill_ _me_ if I’m _late_ ,” He growled, refusing to turn around. His soles squashed the feeble sticks, pummelled the tiny pebbles into the malleable earth. His feet unleashed a wake up destruction upon the forest’s floor, rampaging over the homes of insects and microbes. He wished he could do that to Kenny, make him stop, but nothing stops a determined nine year old, not even another nine year old.

“But _doncha_ wanna _know_?” Footsteps started up behind him, practically skipping, Kyle knew it wouldn’t be long. Kyle pursed his lips, as Kenny swiftly caught up, loomed over him. Even with that parka on Kyle knew the expression, that stupid goofy grin lighting up his face, adding a beaming shine to his already bright eyes. Kenny always made that face, come to think of it; last time he saw him he made gave Kyle that exact same look, like they were in that forest all over again.

_“Doncha wanna know?”_

But then, in that moment, Kenny’s playful chant mocked him, pissed him off, to no end, along with that dumb smile of his. In a fit of swift anger, Kyle took a hand and shoved him, pushing Kenny towards the tangled roots of a nearby evergreen, without so much as a glance. Kenny yelped, off balance from Kyle’s force, and unaided by his natural clumsiness. He tumbled over, hitting the ground with a simple thud, and right then Kyle stopped, stopped short.

“Know _what_?!” He raised his voice, to one of his unique little yells, octaves higher than anyone else’s, reminiscent of the state of his conception. Birds rustled in the trees, startled from their perches by the impatience of a young boy, as Kyle whipped around, facing Kenny again, “Know _what_ , Kenny?! _Know what?!”_

He stayed prone, gazing up at Kyle from the ground, new dirt stains visible on the sides of his parka. Kenny stared, stared for what felt like an eternity then, just watching him, the plethora of emotion painted on his face, unbridled and unrelenting. Maybe it was how the sun hit him—precisely at that angle on that exact time of day—but Kenny looked… _good_.

He couldn’t describe it then, how he felt, because the feeling was so new and Kenny just looked so nice. The flares of fury calmed, but his heartbeat sped up. He wouldn’t ascribe a name to that feeling until high school, when the exact same thing happened all over again, only then with a few other… _less innocent_ impulses.

_“What sex is!”_ Kenny said, as though it was simple, as though it was obvious. Kyle watched him rise from the ground, pat dirt off his jeans. He noticed a poorly stapled book report left behind by amongst the roots, but Kenny stole his attention back, when his eyes again gave him the fullest attention, brilliant as the setting sun, “I can tell ya how you’re _really_ supposed t’do it!”

Kyle can’t remember much, much else of what happened. He probably just stared at Kenny a good long while, contemplating the offer. Or maybe it wasn’t that long of a while, more like a few quick ticks, barely a breath or two. And Kenny looked back at him, in gleeful anticipation, mentally preparing a whole lesson plan for when Kyle finally asked, in a plain, flat voice, _“How do you have sex?”_

For a kid who could still count his age on his hands, Kenny did a pretty decent job explaining, explaining just about everything. He went through from foreplay to aftercare, details of positions and descriptions of technique, not just penises and vaginas but also assholes and oral. The new vocabulary flooded his mind, as he realised the importance of erections and orgasms. Kyle was nine years old.

Now, Kyle’s twenty-three. And in those fourteen years, between the forest and this hotel bedroom, he’s learned a lot more about sex, _had_ a lot more sex. Of course not all of it was good—the first time was pretty damn _awful_ —but not completely devoid of educational value. He’s learned what he likes, what he doesn’t, how he acts and how he _re_ acts, learned how he is when stripped down to nothing but skin and sweat. He always likes when guys mess up his hair a nice long while, hates when they spend too much time on his nipples. He gets off playing needy, wanting and thirsty, gets hot having boys humour him, fulfil his fantasies. He doesn’t like asking as much as he likes begging, for someone to sate his sick little appetite, coming to life within those stark nuances. He got addicted to the feeling—no, not the hard-on or release—of relinquishing control, of, for once, not thinking of anything else going on in his life, embracing only those immediate, touchy, dirty whims.

He doesn’t sleep well after, after sex with David. Well, Kyle rarely _ever_ gets a goodnight’s rest, but this is insomnia is particular, unique. The hours pass by, the star-scape beyond the window shifting like loose desert sands, and he stays awake, _thinking_ , about the panting and heaving, the petting and stroking, moaning and coming. He used to blame it on hormones—too many neural firings inhibiting melatonin production, so much physical stimuli causing excess testosterone—on basic human biology and the model of sexual response. But that’s just _lazy_ , reads just like one of those vague explanations in that Sex Ed handbook. No, his wakefulness has nothing to do with arousal or plateau, with orgasm or resolution. He knows the answer is psychological, yet _simplistic_ , not complicated by any pre-existing anxiety disorder, separate from any possible latent trauma. The truth resonates in his head, crisp and clear as a note blown on a flute: _he doesn’t like the fucking_ , not _enough_ anyways.

Over the course of his musings, his series of reflections, he realised he never really liked it in the first place. But that didn’t matter, because it used to _not_ matter. The details captivated Kyle then, the mannerisms and the idiosyncrasies. Whenever David spoke, Kyle heard an optimistic lilt in his voice, intertwining with his so subtle accent, timbre subliminally soothing. Whenever David really liked a comment made, Kyle noticed him silently snap his fingers, thumb gliding over middle and index with a slight twist of the wrist, inspired and energised by his silliest thought. Whenever David looked at him, Kyle felt every ounce of attention, the magnitude of his being concentrated, basking in a weighted gaze. But most of all, David _listened_ , respected the boundaries Kyle set at the very beginning, when he couldn’t quite remember how to trust someone.

Those were things used to think about, while they were screwing, along with the train of reassurances. David dislikes making marks, answering Kyle’s yearning skin with his tongue instead of his teeth, but he’s good to be around. David prefers softer touches, handling Kyle’s cock far more delicately than he enjoys, but he’s good to him. David always comes first, leaving Kyle’s ass too goddamn soon, but he might be good for him. They repeat in the dim and lengthy afterglows, from the concluding breaths drawn out by clumsy kisses to the intrusive sunbeams brought by a waxing dawn, each time less believable than the last.

David probably isn’t good for Kyle. At one juncture, one cross-stitch in time, he was, Kyle’s sure. He knows there at least _were_ good things about him, good things Kyle used to see: he was _protective_ , he was _nurturing_ , and he was _devotedly vigilant_. But now? No, not anymore. Kyle’s spun the temporal threads around his fingers, and watched every trait he once loved devolve, morph into irredeemable flaws: he is _overbearing_ , he is _babying_ , and he is _scared_ _shitless_. He holds the strings tightly, letting them cut his skin, as he gazes at the threadbare patchwork that is their awkward, at the mediocre sex artlessly embroidering their eventual implosion. It’s for the best, really, he thinks, because, from the very, very start, he’s never been good for David.

But scarily enough, David might be in love with him. Kyle doesn’t know how, doesn’t know why, but the possibility remains, palpable in each effortful breath, every attempt to keep them from reverting into strangers. As smart as he is, he stupidly clings to some sort of hope, hope that their growing list of incompatibilities will magically disappear, that he can make Kyle happy the way he so desperately wants to, that Kyle can be something he’s never been. Kyle knows how he feels, all too familiar with that destructive sort of love, that love that only brings hurt in the guise of affection, that slices deep and ugly scars into the soul, that isn’t really love at all.

He knows exactly why he _really_ fell for him, in the first place. David is the same fool Kyle used to be, attracted and enticed by the danger surrounding an unstable wreck, seduced by curly crimson flames bound to burn his bones, char them into needle-thin faggots. But he’s far nobler than Kyle ever was; David is on a futile mission, to fix what cannot be repaired, while Kyle merely acted on impulse, drunk on his own hedonist desires. But Kyle learned already, when he came to in that emergency room, that there’s nothing hot about boys who abuse, that treat their partners like playthings, disposables. He can’t let go of David, because he deserves better than to be thrown away, by Kyle no less. David has to walk away, of his own fruition, or his delusional _‘love’_ may never die. Kyle couldn’t live with himself if he did that, he loves David too much.

The bathroom door mutes the steady drizzle of the showerhead, consistent in its weak downpour. The first thing David does, the morning after they fuck, is take a shower. He understands why—sex is gross, consisting of bodily fluids and unsanitary exchanges—but he’s always _hated_ it, hated how every morning all David could think of was washing Kyle’s _filth_ off his body. Perhaps it’s not a bad thing, David subconsciously acknowledging the poison laced in his affections, curbing the toxicity before terminal infection degenerates his heart; but it still hurts, just fucking _hurts_.

Bedsheets reek, the stench of used condoms and water-soluble lubricant overpowering spring meadow laundry detergent, his nostrils flooded with the scents of latex and apathy, sweat and ennui, come and disappointment. The linen covers his partly dressed form, stiff cloth sweeping over bare legs, pair of boxers sheltering his cock, frumpy sweatshirt concealing his chest, hiding the lack from his judgemental eyes. His back lies flat on the unfriendly mattress, mess of curls fanned out on the stiff pillow, as he stares up at the ceiling. The acrid taste of David’s mouth still sits on his tongue, thick and pungent, like the residue from a night on a bender. He can’t wait to brush him from his teeth, eat Colgate and drink Listerine, revel in the minty resentment. He listens to the shower, to David scrubbing the traces of Kyle from his skin, lathering and exfoliating until there’s nothing left of him.

Amazing, how David can love him, but at the same time not care, just when Kyle thought he had the monopoly on heartlessness.

His phone vibrates from his open suitcase— _bvvp, bvvvvvp, bvvp_ —muffled by its fabric perch, barely audible over the shower’s trickle. It sits somewhere in arm’s reach, placed at his side of the bed for easy access, to the few possessions he has. The phone sends out another pulse— _bvvp, bvvvvvp, bvvp_ —different from the usual staccato beats of text messages. No, the vibration repeats, enlivened with a sense of urgency, more pressing than a few typed words. Green eyes blink once, twice— _bvvp, bvvvvvp, bvvp_ —before he realises he’s getting a _call_.

A few possibilities immediately come to mind, his brain running through the limited list of his social network. Shelia loves calling him, especially at inconvenient times, and he never sent a message saying he got into town last night. Or it might be Gerald, contacting him on his mother’s behalf, but also wondering his whereabouts. Every now and then Ike calls, with just a two hour time difference, although he knows Kyle’s indifference towards calling. Stan’s pretty strong candidate too, double checking on meeting time or some such thing, but Kyle’s too aware of his bad habit of texting even while driving. Kenny hasn’t called him in a long time, but it might be him on the other end of the line, to ask something before they meet up again. Hell, there’s a chance it’s the damn rental agent, giving a few extra details about the property before he and David move in, covering any forgotten bases to shield himself from any extraneous liability suit. Whoever the caller— _bvvp, bvvvvvp, bvvp_ —Kyle wouldn’t let them go to voicemail.

He hangs one arm over the edge of the bed, dangling limply at first, before turning his wrist. Blindly, he gropes around for the luggage, shifting on the mattress to better his angle. His fingertips sweep through the air, grasping handfuls of nothing, until his little finger taps a hard plastic case. Kyle leans, reaching for the case’s handle, hooking three fingers around and giving it a quick pull, dragging it closer. He pats the layers of clothes, feeling the fibres soaking up the vibrations, as the phone continues buzzing.

“ _Fuck_ , _fuck,_ fuck…” He mutters, body turning, to lie on his side. The sound of the shower stops, suddenly, as Kyle’s palm brushes over the back of his phone. He grabs it, hastily, tremors riding up his arm as he brings it to his face. He squints, disoriented by the bright screen, staring at a smudged contact name and a collection of colourful blotches forming a picture ID. Eyes adjust, sharpening blurs and defining shapes, until…

Kyle furrows his brow, pulling his lips in a tight line. His thumb slides along the bottom of the picture, the picture of a spiteful sneer and a yellow-gloved middle finger. He shuts his eyes, leans his head on the phone, and heaves a grumbled, annoyed sigh, “ _Wha’ is it, Fatass?_ ”

_“Well hellooo there, Kaaahl,”_ Eric Cartman’s drawling voice blares in his ear, loud as a siren, shattering any stray vestige of morning calm. On the back of his eyelids, he sees his face, with perfect clarity, spoiled by the predictability of his expressions. Cartman wears a slanted, sickly grin, reminiscent of some cartoon villain. His eyes, a dark glassy brown, only add to his natural caricature, glistening at the thought of tormenting his childhood foe once more. Layers of choppy brown hair crown a round wide face, fat from lifetime diet of junk and chronic lack of exercise. Of all the people to call, it just _had_ to be _him_ , didn’t it?

Kyle groans, while Cartman bites back his laughter, undoubtedly sitting on the other end of the line, imagining Kyle’s motions the same way Kyle pictures his. As much as Kyle—and maybe Cartman too—wishes he could say they remain in contact out of pure spite, deep down he _knows_ it’s more than that. Their dynamic has always been tricky to define, never actually friends but not totally enemies, certainly rivals but only sometimes antagonists; no matter the sheer volume of fundamental differences there lies, at the core, some strand of similarity that neither can get over, because it’s something they grew up _thriving_ on, _depending_ _on_. Funny how, as many times as he berated Cartman for being a racist, misogynist, anti-Semitic leech, Kyle wound up growing into a parasite no better than him. Ha-fucking-ha.

“ _Kahl?_ ” An eager snap, Cartman’s short temper flaring with impatience; he hates silence. As much as he adores filling the void with his voice, with his abundance of lies and his so snide remarks, he fears the absence of words, of response. Cartman knows he’s useless without someone to talk back. It’s why he called Kyle throughout their college years, relying on his banter even with the entire state of Utah separating them. And Kyle, almost always, picked up the phone, because he’s scared of it too.

“’m ‘ere,” Kyle lifts a hand, rubs the signs of restless slumber from his eye. He rolls his shoulders, hearing a faint pop in one, bones as worn as his mind. Muscles tingle, nerves reawakening after hours of dull paralysis, of tedious idleness. His body aches, not from the sturdy box-springs, from the notion of activity, of getting up and treading through another day. Sleeping might be difficult, but so is facing the daunting threat of consciousness. On the other side of the bathroom door, the hair dryer loudly blows.

“ _Christ_ , are you still _in bed_?” He practically feels the spit, spraying from those lips with every spewed word, “I know you Jews need all the _beauty sleep_ you can get but _come on_ , how much of Mi-Amigo’s _laziness_ rubbed off on you?”

“ _Tch_ ,” With a quick roll of the eyes, Kyle sits up, defiantly. The covers fall to his lap as he straightens his back, pulling his legs to his torso, entire body shifted. He narrows his eyes, staring into the dark screen of the television set, at his fuzzy reflection. More curls sit stacked on the right side of his head than the left, or maybe it’s the left side than the right, “Not everyone spends eleven to three on _Pornhub_. Those of us who actually _get laid_ earned _sleeping in_ sometimes.”

“Not all of us are _sluts_ , Kahl,” Biting and caustic, but Kyle notices the lift in his voice; he’s missed this, “Y’know, that’s part of the whole _greedy_ thing you’ve got going for you.”

“Sorry, I forgot you _still_ can’t score,” The fire singes his tongue, and he realises just how much he’s missed it, too, “Isn’t prostitution _legal_ in Nevada, too? Kinda sad.”

“For your information there are _loads_ of chicks crying _real hard_ ‘cause I’m coming to this stupid _reunion_ instead of being _with them_ ,” With his boast, the rolls under his chin jiggle, the giblet of a turkey outing him to the flock of peacocks.

Kyle lets out a quiet yawn, not caught by the phone’s microphone, then “Crying must be _real_ _hard_ when you don’t exist.”

“They _do_ exist,” A uses a defensive, finger-wagging tone, the sort of childish shit pulled by brats who threaten to tattle to their mothers as soon as things don’t go their way, “And they’re _hells_ hotter than any of the dudes who find your _twink_ _ass_ attractive.”

“You’ve never _met_ most of them,” Using the television screen as a mirror, Kyle starts rearranging his hair, adding a vague sense of symmetry to the impossible chaos of red curls, “But you’re not the best judge of fuckability anyway.”

“Well they’re like, super-duper hotter than _Dave_ - _id_ ,” Cartman refuses to say his name correctly. Even in high school he defaulted to the hard English pronunciation, persisted because he knew brought David visible agitation. Kyle gave up correcting him—he never says his name right anyway, always elongating and exaggerating the vowel—it’d be a waste of effort.

“That’s because he’s not your type,” He says, as-a-matter-of-factly, as he fluffs up some of a clump in the back, “You only like gullible white supremacist Garrison-supporters.”

“And you only like cock,” If ever life gets too complicated, he can count on Cartman to keep it simple.

“Cock with _personality_ ,” He feels the smile curve on his lips, before he sees it reflect in the tinted glass, “And _talent_. Y’know, to lay you down and havin’ you feel warm all over, then takin’ off your pants, gettin’ you hard, and putting it in your…”

“As much as I _totally_ care about the details of you and _Esé’s_ sex life,” Cartman interrupts him, with bullet quickness. Kyle scarcely catches the rumbling grunt, the one matching a scowling frown that wrinkles his nose, bunches up his extra chins. He shies away from verbal descriptions of the explicit, likely because it nails in hard just how little experience he has in the department. Perhaps playing the sex card is a dick move, but Kyle finds it useful, for when he needs to quicken the cadence of their bickering, cut out some of the more monotonous exchanges and skip to straight to the point. Brevity is the soul of wit, and god knows Cartman could ramble for eternities, “I wanted to know if _you_ got back in town yet. I mean Stan practically _crawled_ back to home when he found out he knocked up Miss Can’t-Use-Contraceptives and P’or Boy’s still livin’ it up as white trash.”

“I _did_ ,” He raises his chin as he speaks, happily crafting another comment to piss Cartman off. A keen edge whets his words, “ _Stan_ and _Kenny_ are coming by in a bit. We’re gonna hang out. Just like _old times_.”

“What?!” Even when expecting it, Cartman’s bellow makes Kyle jump, holding the phone too close to his ear. He switches hands, letting one drum wait out the ringing aftermath, “You guys _can’t_ hang out without me!”

“Well we didn’t know when _you’d_ be back in town,” Kyle pauses, heart anxiously jumping as realises the opportunity he opened, “You’re…not back yet, are you?”

“Dude, have you _ever_ driven on I-70?” The sarcasm reassures him, draws a relieved sigh from his lips, “I’m fucking trapped in Mormon hell righ’now.”

“Then you have _plenty_ of time to call Stan and Kenny and see when they’re free later in the week,” A door handle turns, the minute glimmer stealing Kyle’s attention. He looks to the bathroom, watches it slowly swing open. David takes a step out, a white towel wrapped around his waist, hair perfectly dried. Kyle scans over his body, “’sidering Stan’s got a whole _house_ to unpack and Kenny _works_ for a living, they’ll need to find the time _for you_. Just like _I_ made time for you answering.”

“God you’re so _pissy_ ,” David’s eyes flit to him, surprise flashing momentarily. Kyle can’t tell what shocked him—that he was awake or having a phone call with someone who clearly wasn’t his mother—sees a dark brow quirk. Then, loud enough for everyone to hear, “That’s why you’re everyone’s prison bitch!”

Instantly, David’s eyes glaze over, irked by the familiar voice. Like most people, he hates Cartman, but what he hates more is how Kyle continues talking to him, baffled by the loose ‘friendship’ binding them. His lips form a tight, disapproving frown, and Kyle’s eyes flit away, “Don’t you have a three-car pile-up to cause or something?”

“ _Fine_ ,” Cartman huffs, somewhat sadly. In his own twisted way, he is showing _affection_ —if such a word can even be attributed to an amoral _turdscile_ —unable to be friendly without piling a thousand insults over authentic emotion. Although, with the drive from Salt Lake to South Park can take around eight hours, he probably wants some form of company for the arduous journey. Albeit reluctant, he says, with artificial sweetness, “Talk to you later, _Kahl_.”

“Enjoy traffic, _asshole_ ,” Kyle manages, before the dial tone drones, indicates the end of their chat. He shuts his eyes, breathes out his nose, bracing himself for an argument, one that won’t bring a shred of joy. As he places the phone in his hoodie pocket, he lolls his head to the side, opens his eyes.

David stands, stance tense, disappointment lurking his gaze. He wears this face more and more frequently, possibly more than his typical relaxed half-smile, all because Kyle keeps doing things he just doesn’t like. But never, _never_ will he flat out tell him to stop; no, he’ll just heavily imply, whip out that passive-aggressive shit that churns Kyle’s stomach, exasperate him to no end so they both spend the rest of the day restricted to terse statements, serrated remarks. David grinds his teeth—a habit Kyle’s brought up, but he refuses to address—then lowly asks, “Cartman?”

He nearly laughs, rhetorical question nothing but a painfully bad joke, one that never gets any funnier. He can easily retreat into his cynicism, into sardonic jeers and wise cracks, but there isn’t a point anymore. Any petty action, regardless of form, feeds into their cycle, of avoidance and ignorance. If David doesn’t want to talk about it, why should Kyle? Instead, he shrugs, “Who else?”

David’s toes curl on the carpet, playing with the impression made by his print, the closest he comes to tapping his foot. He wonders, sometimes, if David has some sort father complex, daddy issues springing up in awkward places. If he admitted them, he might be a better lay, or at least give Kyle a justifiable reason to stop sleeping with him, “Why don’t you just _block_ him?”

“He’d just change his number,” Kyle says, wry and dry. Although cloaked in wit, both of them know Cartman _would_ do that.

But David doesn’t find his potential stalking comical, cheeks bloating with possible quips, with things he ought to say. They fill, fill, and he swallows them down, shakes his head dismissively, taking the _pussy’s_ route _again_. He puts a hand on the fold of his towel, takes a few steps towards his side of the bed. The one other time they spent in a hotel room, when Kyle went to the American Anthropology Association conference in DC to present on his paper, about the archaeological significance of Jewish heritage, they set their suitcases side by side at the foot of the bed. During the fifteen minute timeslot generously allotted to him, he explained, to the small clusters of professionals who cared about the postulations of a mere undergraduate, how empty spaces between often say far more than the objects themselves. David was in the audience, but he sat farther back than Kyle liked, the space present even then, not half a year prior. He ignored it then, and talked David into a bland hand-job.

Kyle scoots to the end of the bed, casts the sheet aside. The quiet weighs on him, as David unclicks the locks of his suitcase, opens it up and searches through his clothes. Kyle puts two feet flat on the ground, then stops, stares at the window, zones out. Pale sea-through curtains obscure the view of the parking lot, but he still hears a couple of cars. One belongs to a rust-encrusted Chevy he saw when they pulled in, positive the engine would die before the owner got twenty miles from town. The other might be the banged up Rubicon from 2004, or the pair of motorcycles hogging three entire spaces. David parked awfully close to them; hopefully their driving ability is better than their parking job.

“ _So_ ,” David sighs, channelling his aggression into his breath, expelling it from his body. That type of self-help yogi-brained meditation doesn’t work, always leaves a thick film of frustration along the inside of the throat. Kyle blinks, remembers what he was doing, and leans towards the end table, towards the orange prescription bottle. As his palm cups the white label—Kyle Broflovski, Escitalopram 20 MG Tab, Take One By Mouth One Time Daily—bringing it to his lap, David falls back on one of Kyle’s pet peeves: _small talk_ , “Plans for the day?”

He unscrews the white lid, circular pills chattering in their plastic home. Originally, they were just for his anxiety, for his constant and perpetual state of stress, prescribed in his last year of high school. They’ll help him with college, his physician told his parents, make it easier. But no dosage of selective serotonin reuptake inhibitors helped his decision-making skills, made him stop running into situations filled with nothing but strain and mental affliction. Even so, he’s far better off with them; they protect people from how bad he really is, “Meeting Stan and Kenny. They’ll probably swing by in an hour or two.”

Silence, as Kyle shakes out a single pill. He thumbs over the shallow impressions, the company printed code of letter and numbers, the long line where one can slice the tablet in half. He pops in his mouth, uncoated and bitter, and swallows, without the aid of water. Then, “Were you gonna _tell_ me?”

“Stan just asked last night,” He puts the cap back on the bottle, gives it a few quick turns. They both know he didn’t just forget, Kyle omitting it purposefully. Far as Kyle’s concerned, David started the trend, when he started rescheduling dates so he could watch soccer with his other friends, always at one of their places. During the sluggish nights on the couch, numbing his mind with Law and Order reruns and moronic Adam Sandler movies, he argued with himself, over whether David was being considerate not inviting them over, or whether David was using them as a break from him. His _fútbol_ buddies didn’t seem to like him very much. When secure enough, he returns the bottle to its perch, “I thought I mentioned it when you came in.”

“ _You didn’t_ ,” He wants to say more, say that Kyle never does, that Kyle leaves him out all the time, that Kyle acts like he doesn’t want him around. All those things are true, but not for the reasons David assumes. Kyle wishes it was that easy.

Kyle raises his arms, stretches, before rising out of bed. His body grudgingly accepts, accepts that he won’t spend the day loafing around in bed, though his head still feels heavy, laden with invisible thoughts of iron and lead. As a child, everyone marvelled at how much could fit in Kyle’s brain, intelligence vastly exceeding the capabilities of a public school education. Then, getting older, he started stuffing it with shit, compelled by the praises to undermine himself, shred their expectations, prove them wrong. He added copious helpings of alcohol, plus a few casual servings of controlled substances, so he could shed the burden of youthful brilliance. He’s definitely dumber, but he figured out the curse cannot be lifted.

“How long will you be out?” He twitches, at the sound of David’s voice, looks over his shoulder at him. David pretends to scrutinise a pair of grey boxers, staring down the company logo printed under the elastic band. That’s how he looks at him, Kyle thinks, when he isn’t looking back.

The indecision is what he hates most, how he nebulous feelings are. On the one hand, Kyle does care about him, love him, or some of the things he provides at least. And, on the other, he knows this is the Titanic, a ship broken in half and sinking slowly in the icy waters of an arctic zone, “ _Dunno_.”

David purses his lips, then pinches his shoulders. Wordless, he reaches for his towel, undoing its makeshift fasten, deeming the underwear fit to put on. Kyle turns back to the window, biting the inside of his cheek. Or they’ve already sunk, lying to themselves while floating in debris, as hypothermia sets in.

“What am I,” David polices his tone, keeping it too even, too steady, mechanically intentional. How is he talking himself through this? “Going to do while you’re gone?”

Kyle saw this coming, from the moment he promised Stan their outing. David would be away from him, but all by himself, with little for friends in this town, and sparse entertainments at his disposal. Kyle damned him to an adult time-out, punishing him solely because he was wrong for him. And even though he likes to think that giving him time alone will help, help convince him of their mismatch, it won’t. Kyle will come back, they’ll exchange short greetings, endure a tense dinner date together, then coldly spoon until sleep overtakes them. Like everything else in his life of obsessions and compulsions, this is routine, ritual, and Kyle _can’t_ end it. Someone _has to_ end it.

He rubs his eyes again, before glancing at the clock. Red laser lines form blocky numbers, informing him that it is 11:03 AM, Mountain Daylight Time, and he still has to wash the gross car ride and stale sex off him. Oh, sure, he has enough time—Stan rarely arrives earlier than ten minutes late, and Kenny’s suffered from chronic tardiness since second grade—but wants to maximise the portion he has to himself, without looking too distastefully deliberate.

Kyle turns, as David slides the boxers on, granted only a moment’s glance at his flaccid dick. _Shower_ _more than_ _grower_ , he jokes every time, before thinking he shouldn’t be that mean. After all, there was always that Harbucks barista from first year, who hands-down gave the worst screw of his life. Somehow, the guy didn’t notice him _fall asleep_ in the middle of anal, or even seem to care that Kyle got his name wrong _twice_ after applauding his apparent skill. Thankfully better fucks than him paid Kyle that same compliment, giving it a bit more credence.

“You could always take a walk,” He suggests, while David reels a pair of corduroy pants from the depths of his luggage. They have a mustard stain on the left pocket, one Kyle for the life of him cannot remove by any earthly means of fabric care. David knows Kyle hates them, “Downtown the stores’ll be open. You can see if there’s anything we need for the place here.”

A snort, David rolls his eyes. He waves the pants, legs unrolling, flapping in the air. He puts one foot in, then the other, pulls them to his hips. He grants Kyle full view of the stain as he tugs the zipper, secures the button, “We shouldn’t need anything. We aren’t here that long.”

“We have close to two months, _dude_ ,” Venom coats his voices, like an arrowhead dipped in arsenic. David flinches, at the usage of the term he feels too _friend_ -ly. Kyle should’ve called it then, when he first asked to stop referring to him by _‘bro-ish’_ vocabulary, under the impression that transition to dating meant reorienting phraseology, “We probably forgot something.”

“If we need anything, we’ll ask your parents,” He says, staunch, obstinate, so damn sure. He searches for a shirt to wear, with lips closed firmly, declaring the subject closed, too. Christophe got that way around him, when Kyle strayed outside his wishes, defied his authoritarian decrees. Mentioning that to David would only make things worse, hurt him in a way he didn’t have to be. He can barely handle when Kyle breathes his name at all, even though _Kyle’s_ the one he abused, the one living with a defective wrist and cherry scars, the one clinically diagnosed with post-traumatic stress disorder.

“And they’ll give us something we could’ve already bought the store like _fucking adults_ ,” Kyle sneers, stubborn, vindictive, proud. He tugs the hem of his boxers, lowering the band ridden up during sleep, then heads towards the bathroom. The crap carpet scratches the soles of his feet.

“The towel on the counter is clean,” David adds, half-hearted. Kyle stops in the doorway, faces David one more time. He doesn’t turn around, still sorting through his button-ups and tees, letting Kyle stare at his back. Those pants make his ass look flat, too, “For drying your head.”

Then, David looks over, to check, check if Kyle approves of his action, his small and useless display of kindness. He gazes into brown eyes brimming with sincerity, because even if he is upset with him, he still loves him, unconditionally, idiotically. Kyle wants to tell him the clean towels were already on the counter, that laying out a medium size length of terry means practically nothing, but that’s too far, kicking a puppy. Putting on a simper, though, he does nearly the same thing, “ _Thanks_.”

He takes a step onto the cool tile, peeking into the lonely bathroom. For some reason, their toiletries littering the counter, adorning the shower, make the bathroom even less permanent, even more ephemeral. Their belongings will only co-exist together for so much longer.

Kyle lightly pushes the door behind. But before it closes, he hears David one last time: “And don’t forget to take your hair out of the drain.”

Because David reminded him, he’ll ‘ _conveniently’_ forget.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> If you don't think Kyle's middle name is Elijah I'll fight you. Also thank you so much for reading, leaving kudos, and dropping reviews!


	5. Track 5

Out of all the places in this pissant slice of Americana, Kenny can’t think of a single one that compares to the bus stop, in importance, in meaning, in anything. It’s been a presence throughout his life, years spent waiting beside that shabby pole, by that yellow retroreflective sign, making countless memories as he, Stan, Kyle, and Cartman all waited for their ride to arrive. They never figured why the town put the stop there, out in the forest patch just beyond their neighbourhood, isolated from the single-family homes and concrete sidewalks. The four of them stood alone, lined up along the shoulder of a barren stretch of road, no-one to watch them and nothing to do; the _perfect_ conditions for boyish tomfoolery and juvenile delinquency.

From the thinnest breathes of mountain air, the boys crafted their plots, hatched scheme after scheme, spun new games from each coniferous needle, mapped out every design on the snow-covered soil. Eternities laid at their disposal, and none could go to waste, not with the excitement and energy of young curiosity coursing through their veins, not with their minds invigorated and enraptured by a child’s imagination. The simple days of primary school passed by, and the bus stop witnessed all their elementary antics. In first grade, Cartman bet Kenny twenty dollars to lick the sign post, a challenge Kenny gladly accepted. Kyle tried warning him, but his tongue already touched the rusting metal, and the frost fused bold seven-year-old to traffic sign. Stan stared horrified, mouth gaping, when Kenny couldn’t back away, while Cartman laughed himself to tears. Kyle sprinted back to his house, returning ten or so minutes later with a thermos full of hot water, and breathlessly told Kenny to pour it on his tongue. The water freed his tongue, but he couldn’t get the taste of metal from his mouth for a solid week after. Cartman never paid Kenny those twenty dollars.

Playground days waned, and, in the words of Stevie Nicks, even children older. Innocent wonder melted into adolescent confusion, middle school accompanied by changes in hormones and maelstroms of emotion. But they stayed together, even when the tides of teenage social life tried ripping them apart, always washing back up at the bus stop. They all discovered new dimensions of sophistication awaiting them in the ‘real world’, overwhelmed by the complexities that come with age. At the bus stop, their occasionally put their hijinks on hold, traded baffling stories of the world reforming around them. In seventh grade, Kyle told the guys how Bebe asked him on a date, the whole dinner-and-a-movie deal. Cartman sneered, saying it was clearly out of pity, his insults obviously motivated by jealousy. Kenny playfully punched Kyle’s shoulder, saying Bebe had good taste, then Stan went all super-best-friend mode and helped Kyle think it out. He ended up going on that date, agreed to be her boyfriend, and went out with her for an impressive three weeks. But Kyle wasn’t all that affectionate, kissing her only a handful of times, so Bebe told him they were better off as friends. Next year she and Kenny started hooking up on-and-off, earning the snarky little nicknames of _Barbie and Ken-doll_. Stan said that Kyle was the first one who called them that.

The bus stop wasn’t necessary by the time they started driving, but the four of them all gathered there anyway. Everyone knew that was the seat of their domain, but only they knew it was the centre of the universe. As shitty as their lives got, with high school sucking or home life degrading or dumb crushes aching, the bus stop granted assurance and security, invincibility. They captured the ghosts of their younger selves and used them to become untouchable, living their infinity as adulthood loomed ever nearer. In their sophomore year, Stan told all of them to meet there at one in the morning, for some kind of surprise. Cartman claimed he already had plans, but would consider if Stan could persuade him they weren’t doing something lame. Kenny just asked directly what the hell he was up to, only to have the question deferred. Even Kyle looked a touch weary, but pledged his agreement. Kenny followed suit, and Cartman begrudgingly conceded, much to Stan’s glee. Kenny got there at one-o-five, just in time to break up Cartman and Kyle threatening violence, and Stan showed up at ten after one. In one hand, he held four lowball glasses, and in the other a tulip shaped bottle of Hennessey, a fine ol’ vintage worth well near a grand. He said he found it in his grandfather’s stuff, banked on the geezer’s failing memory to conceal its loss. None of them gave two shits how he got it—could’ve robbed a liquor store at gunpoint for all they cared—the three of them all too happy to help Stan knock off the bottle. They hated the taste but loved how fast it went to their heads, four red-faced boys lying next to the bottle on the slushy earth, transfixed on the spinning vortex of stars high above them. The next day they woke up in a Park County cell, with furious parents and killer hangovers, facing absolute hell for their reckless indulgence. But the bits and pieces Kenny remembers were goddamn _glorious_.

They were glory and gold and all that glittered, blinding rays of sunshine and a yellow sheet of aluminium.

And then it was over. High school, childhood, the bus stop: it ended.

Cartman left. Stan left. Kyle left.

All that remained was Kenny, and that _fucking_ sign.

Kenny stands, with his sacred marker, on the edge of the empty street, nobody around and only time to waste. The place isn’t what once was; every ounce of life it had, its keepers gave, nothing without them. Now, the pole leans at an angle, nudged by a drunk driver’s headlight, repair plans buried somewhere in a thick pile of government papers. The black figures on the sign hide behind a layer of graffiti, some smartass with aerosol making a statement, a crudely drawn penis sprayed in glossy red. Cigarette butts and bottle caps litter the soil, and even the asphalt is cracking in more than a few spots.

The sun sits at its zenith in a clear blue sky, while a cloud sits in his mouth, fresh from the fire at the end of his menthol. A wisp of smoke rises from the end of a glowing cherry, dancing as it mingles with the alpine winds, and Kenny lets the spearmint and tobacco sear his tongue, fill his head with nicotine dreams, of reviving bygone scenes. The crisp air around him smells of cottonwood and spruce, of juniper and pine, but that natural scent feels so artificial, a betrayal. As loud as the sparrows and jays twitter and tweet, from their lofty perches in the evergreens, their midday melodies can’t drown out the echoes, of little boys’ laughter or young men’s jokes. Woodpeckers _knock-knock-knock_ their beaks against the sturdy barks, and the mountain’s zephyrs seep through his parka. Is it too soon to call this a ruin?

Kenny keeps his hands in his pockets, keeps looking ahead. He tries not to think, think about the irony he agreed to. Of all the boys, he was the only to stay, the only one who didn’t abandon the bus stop, the only one who saw the desolation the hollow years brought. Time moves so slow in such a small town, slower than even the fires of hell. In Denver, the paper of his cigarillo would burn away faster, so much faster than in South Park; at least that’s what he figures. Would it burn faster in Boulder? Do they know just how damn _long_ the months are here? Especially the summers, the season of ever long days, when the sun loafs above the horizon for oh so long; but the summer they came back was just too short.

Or maybe, just maybe, it was the perfect amount of time; he just didn’t know it. It was exactly as long as it should’ve been, but he just _fucked_ it all _up_. Didn’t say enough, didn’t say what he should’ve, what he felt; he just couldn’t stop thinking about that damn right hook, the sucker punch and curb stomp, about that black eye warning. Because he’d _never_ be good enough, not good enough for anybody, and sure as _hell_ not good enough for _him_.

He exhales, mind clearing as the ash leaves his lips, tinging the mountains’ sighs with light tones of grey. Sometimes he wonders, wonders if people see the misery etched into their picturesque mountain scenes, if they notice how all the people they applaud for living so close to nature, in such tight-knit communities, are all sad and pathetic, dreams unfulfilled. And, more recently, he wonders, if those who escaped remember, remember the feeling, of being absolutely stuck, completely alone, forsaken and abandoned from their first days.

Kenny tilts his head back, lungs sucking up smoke, surrendering to that damn habit again. It must be natural, he thinks, wanting to fill the empty with something, whether that something’s the hollowness in his chest or the bleakness of the landscape. But nicotine only goes so far, in its cathartic ways, unable to fully shield him from those demons, the ones only seen in blank spaces and dark crevices, the ones that dwell and thrive in those interludes people try so hard to avoid. But here, he has no protection—not like he used to, not anymore—those thoughts creeping up from their homes in the recesses of his mind: the doubt, the self-loathing, the damning inadequacy. He thought that resigning his hopes and dreams, that accepting the grim reality of his existence would appease them, but even still, they come.

They come, and they remind him he’s never getting out. No, not ever; because he _belongs_ here, they say, like a corpse in a coffin. But his mundane life isn’t lined with satin walls, far plainer than the basic pine caskets. Hell, at this rate his death will be the highlight of his life, eulogy summarising the few moments of excitement, party mourners celebrating an overall forgettable existence. Then after the service, they’ll drop his body in some plot, in the town’s cemetery, with a simple marker marking his final resting place, a boring inscription etched into the stone. Kenny tries to think what his grave might say—maybe something witty, or maybe something dumb—though his mind stays on decomposition, on his maggots dining on flesh as bones brittle and yellow, wondering whether that’s better or worse than now, being in the same shithole he grew up in and working a dead-end job for scraps.

Smoke tickles his sinuses, leaks from his nostrils. Ash streaks the air, lines of grey passing through field of vision, then he exhales, unleashes billows of darkening smoke, tainted with his morning breath. Beyond the screen of cinders, he looks to the green mountain faces, the peaks sprinkled with soft white snow, embodying the awesome nature John Denver sang about when he strummed his guitar. Love of nature didn’t do him much at all, when his Long-EZ took a nosedive into Monterey Bay, only identified from his goddamn fingerprints. 

God, when did he get so fucking _morbid_?

There’s a term for this, this feeling. Doctors call it _being a cynical asshole_ , and if Kenny recalls correctly, there isn’t exactly a cure. Closest a man can come is numbing it, with whatever poison they please: drugs, alcohol, sex, cigarettes. One day, he’ll find the right combination for temporary happiness, _maybe_. Or he’ll wait for his own funeral. So far, that strategy’s been working _just fine_.

He finishes his drag, drawing heat from the smouldering papers, then looks down, at the ashes peppering the ground around his feet. Wherever people go, he thinks, shit gets dirty, humanity prone to tarnish and taint. Sure, nature’s all a bunch of dirt—processed worm excrement and partialized plant matter—but there’s a kind of beauty to it, something lost when humans started congregating, civilisations started forming, progress started moving. Kenny remembers, back in high school English, the time the class read an essay all about that, some dense and verbose article by a dead guy with a three-word name, maybe Ralph Waldo Emerson or Henry David Thoreau. Kenny could barely manage through a paragraph before his brain shut off, unable to glean a single coherent idea from the mess of old-timey prose. Kyle noticed him struggling, studying for some test during lunch, and gave him a detailed summary, highlighting all the key concepts and emphasising the structural components, anything that might be show up beside a multiple-choice bubble or in the context of a short answer prompt. He did that without talking down, even though his book smarts far surpassed Kenny’s, never made him feel stupid for not knowing something. Working in food service taught him just how rare those types of people are.

Rubber crushes pavement, with swift tyre revolutions, the beckoning harbinger of an oncoming car resonating through the expanse. Kenny lifts his head, with a quick double tap of his cig, releasing flecks of ash as the sweet sound of company barrels towards him, at a smooth forty-five miles per hour. He gazes to the western road, eyes homing in on the grill of a sleek Chevrolet, body dipped in a dark metallic blue. It reminds him of those car commercials, compact SUVs gliding over country roads, a semi-renowned voiceover declaring the true masculinity of conquering nature in a revved-up soccer mom ride. The car slows as it approaches, expectant, asphalt crumbling and crunching under the rolling wheels. It veers closer to the sign, then stops squarely in the lane designated for opposing traffic flow. A smile forms on his face; Stan is the only one of them to flawlessly master shirking authority through deliberate minor infractions.

He leans on the balls of his feet, taking one more drag as the car parks, driver’s side window aligned with his face. Kenny looks into the reflective glass as the window slides down, bringing with it a burst of warm air, scented with upholstery cleaner and dashboard wax-cubes, undertones of canine piss and fast food farts. Noise drifts from the stereo, a broadcast from the local radio station, two exaggerated personalities chatting up a storm in the brief eight minutes they have before the music resumes. As the two caricature voices laugh at their own lame jokes, Stan’s eyes focus on Kenny, warm familiarity brimming from rich ocean blue.

He looks more grown up, Kenny thinks, more mature than his wedding day. Prenatal stress must do that, the trimester cycles training him to be _fatherly_ , be prepared for stinky poopy diapers and gruelling sleepless nights. A thin film of drowsiness coats his eye, apparently adjusting to nocturnal life already. Inkwell locks scatter over his forehead, with a couple of cowlicks sticking up from the crown of his head, frazzled from another morning unpacking spree. His lips curve into a worn grin, garnering energy from the brisk air, from his friend’s presence, maybe even from the bus stop.

Kenny plucks the cigarillo from his lips, flicking a few more dashes of ash onto the ground. Near his fingertips, he feels the paper crumble, the burn eating its way towards the filter, all his tobacco nearly spent. The mint rushes through his head as he laughs, pushing smoke out his nostrils, and cocking his head to the side, “What can I do for ya today, handsome? Blowjob for twenty or spend the extra ten for a lil’ half-‘n-half?”

“Pff,” Stan huffs out a laugh, shaking his head as a smirk sneaks on his lips. His fingers tip-tap on the steering wheel, two at a time in compliment, like the soft ticks of a grandfather clock. The wedding band on his finger captures a ray of sun, a glinting beacon of white gold, fourteen or eighteen karats. There’s a big difference to jewellers, but according to Kenny they all look the same: shiny and expensive. Even though he knows Stan worked his ass off to afford something like that, a pang of envy runs through Kenny, too aware of the luxury contained in a modest little ring. Or having someone to give that ring to. Stan shifts in his seat, bringing Kenny’s attention back to him, “Morning to you too, _asshat_.”

As menthol tickles fades, a new warmth radiates through him, the sort he’s longed for, the kind he’s missed, of carefully kept company, of a kingdom of possibility. Maybe the nicotine’s just rotting holes in his brain, giving him thoughts he shouldn’t have, but looking at Stan, ready to drive him off to grab Kyle and embark on adventure, it feels _right_. He relishes the feeling, as he takes another drag, living it up before it vanishes in minted evanescence, just like every other high, “Y’know in my business, a _no_ ‘ld do _just fine_.”

“If you’re gonna be that way, I’ll just call you an Uber,” A wry smirk teases at Stan’s lips, playful, reminiscent of their boyhood days, “Or you can walk the few miles there, whatever works.”

Kenny bites his lip, pulls on a simper. Out of all the boys, Kenny was the first to learn how to drive, when he was fourteen years old, right after Kevin got his licence. His big brother took him out in secret, teaching him traffic laws and parking manoeuvres, because he knew that when the time came Stuart and Carol wouldn’t be able to teach him or Karen. And Kenny learned, despite his anxiety, his crushing fears all justified by statistical evidence and personal experience, too acutely aware of the lethality of thousand-ton vehicles. He never got his license, though, even after the arrest, when he finally inherited the keys to Kevin’s Ford. He handed them right to Karen, along with all the pointers Kevin gave him, and she passed her driving test on her first try. She gets better use out of the Ford than he ever could, anyway, “Walkin’ does me _just fine_ ‘round here.”

“ _Whatever_ ,” Stan rolls his eyes, then takes a hand off the wheel, motions Kenny to get in the car. Kenny rolls his eyes back, a snarky imitation, before taking a step towards the back of the car. The sole of his boot crushes a crumbling hunk of asphalt, as Stan’s eyes dart for his hand, staring sharply at the cigarillo, with the stern stare of a warning parent. The last puff flows from his lips, as Kenny feels the look ice his hand, practically freeze the cherry off, layers the warmth with sleet. He understands, he really does, recalling the days when Stan’s asthma flared up for practically no reason, but each attack coinciding with a stroll past the chain-smoking Goth Kids with their unfiltered Marlboros. It was always minor, some coughing and chest pain, and ironic considering his inhaler typically stored marijuana, not fluticasone; but he couldn’t tolerate Kenny’s second-hand for all that long. Kyle told him once he thought it was more of a psychological trigger, from when he wore all black and called himself Raven, let his curdled cynicism ferment into existential nihilism, into binge-drinking Tennessee whiskey and drawing red lines where no one would see.

Kenny tosses the dwindling cig to the pavement, a slender streak of grey rising as it falls. Flecks of ember splatter as it hits black, and his boot snuffs out the remaining flickers of light. He then continues walking, leisurely around the rear of the car, eyes flitting to the windows, analysing the backseat. Squeaky chew toys and plush woodland critters sit in a clump on one seat, a collection of playthings for a family-friendly pet. Stan sent him a couple pictures, citing Kenny’s low Facebook activity, of the dog he and Wendy got just after their honeymoon: a grey pup that mixed Labrador with Pit Bull with Weimaraner, lovingly named _Snooty_ for his noteworthy snout. Kenny told him that name seemed more fitting for something like a manatee, but Stan just said it was Wendy’s idea.

He watches Stan lean across the console, reaching to open the passenger’s side for him. Kenny quickens his pace, to keep him from the trouble, long stride granting him the advantage. Stan’s fingers graze the interior handle, as Kenny pulls the door wide open. Stan furrows his brow, leaning back in his seat as Kenny slides in. With a content smirk and slam of the door, Kenny plays it off, “Beat ya to it, Stanny boy.”

“Yeah, and after we get Kyle _you_ can ride in the _trunk_ ,” Stan says, turning his hand into a fist, then lightly punching Kenny on the shoulder. His parka mostly buffers it, feeling only a light tap; Stan’s love punches are soft as ever. He raises a brow, as he readjusts in the driver’s seat, hand reaching for the gear shift, “Are you gonna wear that thing _all day_? It’s supposed to get to high _sixties_ , dude.”

Kenny stretches his legs out, using the seat controls to give himself more room, as he glances down at his torso. He wears his parka unzipped in the summertime, showing off whatever stupid tee typically hides underneath. He looks down at the Triforce from Zelda, the one shirt he found that reeked least of shitty Chinese food, wondering if Stan forgot, for a second or for real, how easily Kenny gets cold. Sure, everyone claims he has one of the warmest touches, saying his skin gets so hot he feels like he’s exuding life itself, but any heat they claim is lost on him inside, Kenny constantly grappling with persistent chills and internal frostbite. He used to wonder if that was why he spent a good couple of years fucking random people, in shady backrooms or the Denny’s parking lot, but likes believing it was for something greater, like paying the bills. He opens his mouth, about to answer, when the two jokers chuckling on the radio calm themselves, start announcing the next song:

“Now we’ll be turnin’ back to the tunes with an oldie but goodie, a regular classic written right in our home state. That’s right, _Fleetwood Mac’s masterpiece, ‘Landslide’!_ ”

The opening guitar plucks out the sombre tune, car quickly filling with the heartache imbued notes, with sorrowful twang. Kenny’s tongue taps the roof of his mouth, watching Stan’s expression warp with alarm, hairs standing on the back of his neck. Hastily, he takes his hand off the shift, slams one of the buttons on the built-in stereo, switching the input from Radio to CD before the trembling vocals can leak out the speakers. Silence falls over the car, as Stan reaches back to the shift, switches them from park into drive. His foot eases on the gas, and the scenes out the window start rolling by, faster with each passing second. The car turns, directed back the way it came, so they can avoid downtown and ride the more open way to the hotel.

He glances at Stan, at the tension in his muscles, at the teeth burrowing into his bottom lip. He’s indifferent to all their other songs, won’t so much as bat an eyelash if “Rhiannon” or “Little Lies” starts playing on a mall loudspeaker. But something about that song, about the lyrics and the melody, gets to him, _real_ bad. Kenny knows why he hated it in high school, always reminded somehow of his and Kyle’s big fight, but there’s something in his eyes, now, something different. That glean wasn’t there before, storm clouds cast over the blue, a darkness Kenny didn’t know. He remembers something _else_ , a memory Kenny doesn’t share, a time Stan doesn’t want to think about. A long, exhausted sigh draws from Stan’s lips, but his exhale doesn’t loosen him, only makes him worse.

Kenny lolls his head to the side, watching Stan stare unblinking out the windshield. His hand moves from the automatic to the two-o’clock on the wheel, holding on with a strangling grip. Kenny’s tongue pokes the inside of his cheek, as he looks over Stan, tense with the reminders of bad, bad memories. Sure, he might not be waiting around to die the way Kenny is, but he’s got some past he wants to forget about. Lucky for him he’s got a bright future cheering him on. His knee bumps below the glove compartment, as remarks, “Well, I’m partial to the Dixie Chicks version myself.”

A laugh ekes out his throat, relaxing his entire body. Stan and Kenny were always the cool and neutral ones of the group, balancing out Kyle and Cartman with their flares of fire and fighting. They kept the other two from each other’s throats in their own ways, Stan with his diligent voice of reason, and Kenny with honed skills of diffusion. But Stan’s serious mind got the better of him, from time to time, which Kyle handled with logic and ethos while Cartman employed insult and mockery. Kenny, though, using the same talents that kept Karen calm during nights when their parents flung bottles at each other swearing up a storm, could disable that, more attuned to the emotion and circumstance. Perhaps that’s why their personal hijinks were mostly rationalised impulses, “Didn’t they do the song ‘bout the lesbians murdering an abusive husband?”

“See?” Kenny crosses his legs, looking back to the road. A few meandering clouds laze in the sky, sluggishly crawling towards the green peaks. The line of trees running along the shoulders constantly shuffles, changing the groupings of conifers. Won’t be long until they reach the older neighbourhood, the houses he’s been invited to through the years on playdates and hang outs, the homes of parents whose nests sit empty, “I gotcha to be a _lil’_ bit country _after_ all.”

“Folk rock is still the better genre whether you admit it or not,” Stan shoots back a leery side eye, as the first homes appear on the horizon. He bobs his head to the glove compartment, as his eyes flicker back to the road, scanning for any rogue joggers or clueless pedestrians, “Get somethin’ outta there. We’re not driving without _some_ music on.”

“With _your_ taste that’s _debateable_ ,” Kenny snickers, earning a quick glower. He follows the instructions, cracking open the glove compartment, revealing a thick black case, Stan’s cache of precious CDs. He grabs it, unzipping the sides and opening it up, discs stored safely in their plastic sleeves. He flips through the pages, the music ranging flavours of rock and alternative, with a few sprinkles of punk. He recognises most of the discs as the soundtrack of sophomore year, the year only Stan held a coveted license, and bore responsibility of driving the four of them everywhere. His main condition was that he controlled the music, his somewhat limited selection playing at all times. Even Cartman was thankful when Kyle had the right to drive, glad they could alternate between the closed pool in Stan’s dealership Dodge and the eclectic breadth in Kyle’s used Mercedes. Kenny glances over the designs printed on the discs, trying to choose tolerable background noise, but finding Fountains of Wayne and Green Day a little grating on his ears. He turns passed a burnt copy of a Bowling for Soup album, then stops, eyes falling on roses printed in black-and-white, and starts laughing, “ _Eminem?_ Seriously, Stan?”

“ _Shut up_ ,” Stan snaps, tone defensive. His nose scrunches, making a face as he slows for a stop sign, thinking up an excuse. Kenny slides the disc out of the sleeve, inspecting the back for any scratches, suppressing a few extra chuckles. He sees Stan’s eyes flicker to him, sceptic, before mumbling, “It’s a guilty pleasure.”

“Oh, I’m sure it is,” Kenny shuts the case, tossing it back in the glovebox. He puts the disc to the empty slot on the stereo type, sliding it in until the machinery registers its presence, sucks the CD in. The digital words change from _NO DISC_ to _READING_ , a few seconds passing before the accepting _TRACK 1_ appears. Kenny turns the volume dial, as the recorded crowd applause amplifies. Stan turns his head, the two exchanging smiles, and silently agreeing to an obnoxious sing-along as soon as the next song started. Maybe the teenage glory was over, but at least he still has this. But why is there still that voice in the back of his mind still asking: _For how much longer?_

* * *

 

_Chai_ is the Hebrew word for _living_ , comprised of two letters— _chet_ and _yod_ —pronounced with a rough guttural sound, produced from the back of the throat. His mother’s Hebrew name shares the same root, _Chaya_ for her deceased grandmother, the same way Kyle was named _Eliyahu_ for his dead Zayde. He first heard the word when he was young, just after Gerald said Kiddush as they welcomed Shabbat. After the blessing, he’d hold up the shiny glass, declaring _“L’chaim,” to life_ , then taking a swig of Manischewitz. As Kyle grew older, learning the prayer’s cadence rather than just slurring through, when the cup was passed to him he softly said a _l’chaim_ before holding his breath and sipping the bad kosher wine. In Jew Scouts, the camp leaders taught how special the Hebrew language was, not simply because it was the same spoken by Abraham and Isaac and Moses, but because letters could act as numbers too. _Chai_ has the numeric value of eighteen, which is why at that age his Uncle Murrey sent him a gift, handmade pendant from a little shop in Tzfat. Kyle received a silver square, lined with bricks imitating those of the Western Wall, with the word inscribed in blocked print.

He hated it for the longest time, shoving it in the bottom of his drawer, only digging it out for special occasions, when he knew his extended family would ask if they didn’t see it worn. Kyle took it with him to college, fearing Shelia would reprimand him if she found it at home, but kept it packed in his suitcase. Every time a Tinder profile appeared, with some other Jewish guy wearing a chain with _Chai_ or _Hamsa_ or even a _mezuzah_ , he rejected them with a quick swipe left, with only a few exceptions made over the years, all of them isolated one or two-night stands. After moving in with Stan and Wendy, after his time with Christophe finally ended, he discovered the pendant, secured in its case. That’s when he started wearing it, using the clasp to exercise his left hand, regain its dexterity. The pendant gave him power, the choice of putting it on or taking it off a show of control, over his life and over himself; it granted him _chai_.

The metal feels cool against his skin, the flat plate of silver resting on his chest, tucked under a layer of button-up plaid. He can’t place when exactly he stopped wearing the chain, whether it was while things between him and David were still good or whether it was as they started going bad, but the absence weighed on him, gradually. David never pointed out, when he wore it or when he didn’t, either because he failed to notice or refrained to comment. He might have been concerned, curious if the change signified a deeper shift in Kyle’s attitude. He might have been relieved, glad the charm wouldn’t interfere with their late-night screwing. Kyle knows he won’t ask, but can’t say he’d care if he did. He hates this, this person he’s become; or maybe this is who he is, who he’s been, all along.

David doesn’t deserve someone like Kyle. Kyle deserved someone like Christophe.

He clutches a Styrofoam cup of complimentary coffee, hands toasted by the flavourless blend of bad beans, of a roast never meant to be brewed. David scrounged the hotel breakfast bar as hypoallergenic soap cleansed Kyle’s skin of last night, seeking out an olive branch to make up for being snippy. He delivered it to Kyle, with two disposable cups of half-and-half already added, placing it on the nightstand near his bag. Considerate as the thought, he forgot Kyle’s system, how Kyle adds milk based on his mood, feelings told through a spectrum of coffee and creamer. David hasn’t noticed his coffee darkening since Boulder, Kyle ignoring the gallon of 2% in the fridge, longing for his coffee pot as David’s Keurig doled out a single mug’s worth at a time. Kyle explained they could get something that can brew both single-servings and twelve-cups, but David deferred him each time, saying it was something to think about for their next long-term place. Kyle brings the cup to his lips, inhales the betrayal, and takes a sip. The acrid taste spites his tongue, and he wishes he wouldn’t bother anymore.

The heat of David’s palm seeps through Kyle’s sleeve, his hand anchored on Kyle’s forearm, arm pressed to his back. David keeps him snug at his side, in suffocating propinquity, Kyle locked in obnoxious intimacy. Everyone has a preference of how to hold, usually torn between on the shoulders or around the waist. Stan typically rests his arm on Wendy’s shoulders, a casual gesture of their relationship, innocent display of togetherness. All he has to do is open his arm, and Wendy snuggles into his embrace, natural in an almost cloying way. Kenny favours the waist, Kyle recalling the strings of insignificant others who occasionally accompanied him. Sometimes he’d be the one holding, arm snaked around the band of Tammy Warner’s torn short-shorts, other times he’d be held, DogPoo Petuski’s dirty fingers tugging on his belt loops. Kyle never considered the forearm until David, when he introduced it to the equation; it had a degree of possession and constraint, one Kyle ignores when starved for touch, when loneliness bites too deeply. But he hates it afterwards, when minimally sated until his next relapse, when David masks their distance with physical closeness. Perhaps he fears the absence, though once it comes he’ll be thankful, liberated.

A thumb smooths over a wrinkle on his shirt, and Kyle swallows down another mouthful of bitterness. His nails dig into the cup, scar the design printed on the side, disrupting the swirling lines decorating the side. Soothing fingers are a subtle stab at his sanity, David pre-emptively calming Kyle, before he feels a semblance of emotion. Kyle pays him a furtive glance, looking at him from the corner of his eye. David stares at his phone, ignorant of his surreptitious gaze, all attention focused on the latest news article, on their president’s most recent international blunder. Brown eyes follow the printed words, while green look back to the glass lobby doors. Kyle inhales, air channelled through his nose, chest rising as his lungs fill. The chain crawls on his neck, and he lets out a weighty breath.

“Thanks for the coffee,” Kyle says, stiff, laconic. He searches in the distance, for Stan, for Kenny, for anything to save him from this asphyxiation. All he sees are snow-capped peaks and fat fluffy clouds, a sun shining too brightly, a sky painted too blue. He struggles, for more padding words, but fails, resigning to another sip of coffee. The more trickles down his throat, the more he needs a decent cup. Maybe that’s what they’ll do together, grab coffee like nine-to-five adults, ask Mr Tweak to whip up some lattes or cappuccinos, ask for a shot of espresso but decline from the pump of methamphetamine.

“Hmm?” David grants Kyle a brief glance, annoyance flickering behind the brown. Kyle watches him blink, hide his emotion, to try and play it off as mild irritation, due to the sudden interruption. He gives Kyle’s arm a light squeeze, some obligatory sign of affection, and Kyle knows he’s mad, about their morning bickering, about his afternoon outing, about this ongoing decline. If only Kyle could reciprocate, rage engulfing him in a flare, words ablaze with anger; but he can’t even muster an inkling of fury, too much effort required. David looks back to his phone, with a soft, “Don’t mention it, _dear_.”

_Dear_ , Kyle bites his lip, word ringing in his ears. When they first started dating, Kyle let him use anything he pleased, preferring even the most saccharine options to the sick name Christophe used. But as time wore on, the pet-names grew tired, Kyle loathing the gentleness fluffing his words, careful cushions stuffed with goose feathers and deference. He calls Kyle _dear_ to avoid the hard truths, to write their issues off as lovers’ quarrel rather than acknowledge what they are: a dumpster fire waiting for a cigarette’s spark. He closes his eyes, desperately repeats that David needs to see it, see it for himself. They must be extinguished, completely and utterly stamped out. Then he’ll accept that Kyle can only do one thing: burn, burn, burn.

A vibrating pulse rides up his leg, Kyle straightening his back at the incoming message. He reaches into the pocket of his jeans, while David’s hand awkwardly slides along his moving muscles, a struggling grip. He loses, easing as Kyle holds up his phone, thumb accidentally double-clicking the home button. Before he can catch a single word on the banner, the full application opens, with Kenny’s name heading the screen. A smirk sneaks on his lips, as he reads over the most recent speech bubble— _get ur ass outside xxoo_ —hears Kenny in his head, playfully drawling out his words, jokingly puckering his lips with an ostentatious wink.

Then, he notices the second-most recent message, dated May 26th, a simple _happy birthday._ A little thumbs-up icon appears beside the message, a like with no further comment, and his heart plummets, stomach sinks. He remembers the long nights his first year, lounging in his dorm, texting Kenny about his day, hearing about things back home, keeping in touch. Christophe destroyed that, enthralling charm manipulating him into cutting all ties, starting with the most geographically distant, and working inward. He obliterated the infrastructure of his network, leaving him a sporadic communicator after all this time. A tremble creeps up his wrist, and Kyle knits his brow; _no, not now_.

“They’re here,” He speaks fast, as he shoves the phone back in his pocket, hides his locking hand. Kyle forces a smile, through the twinges of pain, waits for David to lower the phone, turn his head. His lips press into a thin line, staring at Kyle with smouldering eyes, with conflicted feelings. David grapples with them, as he stares, Kyle watching patiently, waiting for the inevitable loss, the pitiful resignation, then a twitching grin proves his defeat.

David nods, then pulls Kyle in front of him, a swing paced as a clumsy waltz. He leans down, presses his lips to Kyle’s, an unneeded kiss goodbye. Kyle’s heart pangs, tasting the eggs over-east and the buttered rye flavouring David’s mouth, wishing he wasn’t so goddamn predictable. How long can he possibly lie to himself? How long until he finally gives in?

Kyle steps back, out of their kiss, out of his hold, flashes one more contrived smile, and turns away from David. The automatic doors slide open, Kyle stepping out of the lobby, greeted by the brisk breath of the Rockies, the familiarity of home. David doesn’t get this, this attachment he has, for this shitty town in the middle of nowhere. He shuts his eyes, taking his final sip of coffee as his mind floods with lighter thoughts, with the sweetness of childhood memories, with the pride of teenage milestones, with friendly faces and humble folk and ample parking and people shouting…

_“Kyle!”_ Heat overwhelms him, as Kenny’s arms envelop him, seize him in a zealous bear hug. He tugs Kyle to his chest, Kyle dropping his cup at the unexpected force, coffee tickling his windpipe on the way down his throat. He barely manages a cough, breathless from surprise, brain slow to process. Kyle looks up, to those brilliant eyes of sky blue, brimming with enthusiasm, happiness, pure motherfucking bliss. He draws in a breath of Kenny McCormick, of minty tobacco and cheap soy sauce, two-dollar detergent with no fabric softener, country music ballads that strum on heartstrings. His hair shines like polished gold bars, only matched by the scintillating stars in his eyes. Kenny wears that same goofy grin, the one he saw on his face when they first met in pre-school, the one that made him swoon in high school, “How much ‘as that _sweet ass_ of yours _missed me_ , huh?”

No, he hasn’t changed, not a damn bit, _thank fuck_. Gasping wheezes morph into choking laughter, a genuine grin teasing at Kyle’s lips. With his free hand, he returns the hug, rests a cheek on his chest. He absorbs Kenny’s warmth, invigorated by his vibrancy, by the chai emanating from his being. No one else in the world can give a hug quite like Kenny McCormick. Kyle hums, a sense of buoyancy saturating his mind, dizzied by the moment. He can’t place why, but this is different, from when they reunited at Stan’s wedding, but he’s not sure how. He doesn’t care how, not now; all that matters is how much he missed him. The words pour from Kyle’s lips in a breathless torrent, “So _fuckin’_ much, dude _, so fuckin’ much_.”


	6. Track 6

Ronny’s Diner has topped state surveys as one of the worst eateries in Colorado for the past eight years running. The service is slow, the staff is openly rude, and their sanitary conditions give health inspectors full-fledged night terrors. None of the booths have been replaced, only shamelessly reupholstered, the resulting feeling similar to balancing on over-inflated balloon. The bathrooms are perpetually out of something, whether it be toilet paper or hand soap, and, whenever someone flushes, the plumbing ominously creaks. There’s at least one kitchen fire annually, but by the end of the week Ronny’s is up-and-running again, the open sign laughing in the face of God and sensible grease consumption. There are few places in Park County with a dingier reputation, yet it remains a local favourite, having grown on the hearts of everyone in South Park, cholesterol plaque clogging the town’s major arteries. People love Ronny’s for its consistency, its stalwart adherence to tradition, and for its triple stack bacon cheeseburger specials, priced at only seven dollars and ninety-five cents.

The table tops and vinyl seats are two slightly different shades of cornflower blue, a colour Kyle exclusively associates with cannabis highs. _That_ was the main reason the boys frequented the place during high school, always stumbling in with red-red eyes and raging appetites, craving some oil-drenched diner food with its munchie-curing powers. He still remembers strolling in, after his first time trying weed, soaring high as a fucking kite. Stan had to steer him to their table, Kyle too gone to walk straight, and Kenny had to order on his behalf, Kyle too giddy to read the menu. The waitress wrote down _country fried steak_ instead of _steak medallions_ and _eggs_ _over easy_ instead of _sunny side up_ , but he still ate the whole thing in a single sitting, his brain so sizzled he actually laughed at Cartman’s Tom Hardy impressions. Thinking back, there _must’ve_ been _something_ added to that shit, because nothing after hit him quite as hard, boiled him down to completely and totally _stoned_. He’s only gotten close to that once, during one of Stan and Kenny’s roll-offs, when Kenny rolled the fattest spliff using grass he stole off Craig, the _best_ joint Kyle’s _ever_ smoked.

Kyle might not be _baked_ , but hours without food caught up to him. Hell, he barely noticed he was hungry, walking with Kenny to the car, trading cursory life updates before plunging to their regular rapport. When the wooziness crept, Kyle blamed the trashy rap blasting from the stereo, greeting Stan by ripping on his music and his CD fetish. Stan rolled his eyes, reminded Kyle how he puts up with his penchant for Israeli hip hop, but switched back to the radio. Before Kyle even thanked him, his stomach let out a grumble, loud and gurgling. The plan made itself after that, Kenny suggesting food, Stan proposing Ronny’s, and the three of them falling into their routine, a welcomed comfort. Finally, fresh air, _breathing room_ , no hampering relationships, no lingering trauma, just sweet, numbing nostalgia. Thank _fuck_.

The uneven mountain of whipped cream sinks as Kyle sips his milkshake, climbing slow and thick up the straw. Ronny’s hand-blends, uses real soft serve ice cream, none of that flavoured milk crap; makes it all the more satisfying when the saccharine strawberry passes through his lips, smooths his mouth with its velvet richness. Strawberry is a fruit with a tartness, one that somehow makes it sweeter, something Kyle’s always loved. In grade school, Cartman teased him, because strawberry ice cream’s pink and pink’s a pretty queer colour. One day, in fourth or fifth or maybe third grade, Kyle interrupted his teasing by looking him dead in the eye, saying matter-of-factly _“Well pussy’s pink too,”_ and Cartman conceded with a huff. Nights before his bar mitzvah, Kenny and Stan slept over at his house, rummaged in the cabinets and found some of Sheila’s potent strawberry shampoo. As Kyle slept, the imminence of his manhood bearing down, the two of them poured a fruity twist into his hair wash, and Kyle smelt like a grove as he stood on the _bimah_. Around the time he had his first blunt, everyone was bullshitting around, concocting bad nicknames to reinforce comradery through ragging. Bad ideas volleyed back and forth, when suddenly Kenny stole the floor with a single clap, drawing all attention before pronouncing him _Strawberry Shortcake_ , and the name followed until graduation. The sugar tingles his taste-buds, rushes to his head, a cold respite. He’s missed this.  

Stan tells Kenny how Wendy is looking into a hospital administration, considering applying for something at Hell’s Pass, so the two of them can pay off what they borrowed for the down payment. Kyle helped him do the numbers, before telling Stan to get a real accountant, doesn’t need to listen; he absently taps the tall soda glass, the perspiring beads rolling down faceted sides, wetting his fingertips. He debates between chicken tenders and curly fries, which seems more delicious at the moment. He can take one of the remaining crispy strips and dunk it in a bath of honey mustard, a classic combination. Or he can pluck a fry from the sprawling mound and dip it in his shake, wed salt with cream. The simplicity of the decision exhilarates him, plain options with clear outcomes, only messy if he drips sauce on his pants. But even the most complex choices, in all their disgusting intricacy and sticky convulsion, are fundamentally the same: someone makes a call, and something happens. In the back of his mind, he considers David, but the thought exhausts him, so he focuses on white meat and potatoes. No matter what, those both end in his stomach.

Kenny chews on a mozzarella stick, a long string of cheese connecting the half in his mouth and the half in his hand. He only got an appetizer and fountain Dr Pep-er, intending to save half the platter in a to-go box, probably for Karen as a snack. While Stan shoves a barbeque burger down his throat, onion rings wedged between gooey steak sauce and melted pepper jack, Kenny picks at his plate, careless, casual. He twiddles the breading between his fingers, the same way he twists his cigarette filters. Kyle knows all his idiosyncrasies, memorising through friendship, fixating in love. He once envied Kenny’s menthols, jealous with a passion, coveting their place between his lips, inhale and exhale, suck and blow. His breath lit the cherry, and filled Kyle with tangerine intensity, long before he learned how nastily those bright tips burn. Kyle still craves nicotine, every so often, but doesn’t say anything, not since the admission slipped in front of David. The disgust that crossed his face, that he dare continue the habit after… he’ll never shake that look from his mind.

The line of cheese thins, snaps, a long trail dangling down his chin, and his eyes flit to Kyle. He has the eyes of a summer day’s sky, pristine and bright, _warm_. He looks at him, the same way he did then, and Kyle basks in his gaze, the one he doesn’t _deserve_. Kenny has no idea what happened to him, so he can stare without seeing the cracks, the fractures, the breaks. He doesn’t see Kyle as a collection of cuts and bruises, as ugly scar tissue and stiff locking bones, as something broken that others need to fix. Pity doesn’t lurk behind his pupils, irises untinged by funereal sympathy; Kenny only sees _Kyle_. There are a lot of things he has to say to Kenny, a lot to apologise for, a lot more to explain; but he can’t do that now. At some point, he will—he _must_ —just later, elsewhere, alone. Here, though, Kyle can be selfish, indulge in old times, in how easy life used to be. He misses that.

Kenny flashes a grin, mozzarella hanging from his teeth, taking his dumb lopsided smile and making it goofier. He clicks his tongue, imitates the sound of a cocking gun, and the cheese waggles, with ridiculous flexibility. _Stupid_ , he looks so goddamn _stupid_ , but that makes it _hilarious_ , because Kenny has a knack for making people laugh, another part of his humble redneck charm. Kyle snorts, snickers, lets out the silly kind of laughter often heard amongst kindergarten classrooms and hippie music fests. It tickles his tongue, fresh and silky, ribbons of sundae syrup spilling out from his chest. He laughs without vigilant brown casting a passive-aggressive glare, questioning his taste, in judgemental silence. Instead he hears Kenny’s chuckles echo, broken apart by licks guiding the cheese up to his mouth.

Stan stops, in the middle of discussing mortgage costs, his extremely _adult_ explanation derailed by exceedingly _childish_ giggling. Obligatory annoyance crosses his face, invested in his own monologue, until he realises how incredibly _boring_ he sounds, how he wouldn’t want to listen to himself either. Stan used to shudder at the mention of _credit score,_ fearing both _fixed rate_ and _adjustable_ payment plans, used to skip economics to go home early, replaying _Fallout: New Vegas_ and getting class notes from Kyle the day before a test. But, in getting older, people find other things to be afraid, and acclimate to the banalities of ageing. His fingers leave deep impressions in the fluffy bun, Stan lifting the burger from his plate, “Sorry, forgot you two don’t care about _married people_ problems.”

“It’s not that, Stan,” Kenny glances back at Stan, swallowing the last of the cheese. He takes a quick swig of soda, carbonated bubbles fizzling as he slams the cup on the table, “It’s your _straight people_ problems Kyle ‘n me don’t give two shits about.”

“Says the guy who’s seen _every_ season of _Grey’s Anatomy_ ,” Stan rolls his eyes, takes a bite.

“Only the first _eight_ ,” Kenny waves half a mozzarella stick dismissively, “And it was for a _good_ cause.”

“Yeah, Tammy Warner,” Kenny’s first _real_ girlfriend, because relationships don’t count until after sixth grade. She was in the grade above them, lived in a trailer park, and gave head to guys in the parking lot of TGI Fridays. Kyle, Stan, and Cartman warned him early on of her known exploits, put a hand on his shoulder and told him his girlfriend was a notorious whore. Kenny took the news fairly well, bursting into a victorious dance, then running off to buy condoms. He was more than happy giving his virginity to an _experienced_ woman, he told them, then delved into explicit details regarding reverse cowgirl, “Damn good cause.”

“ _Fuck you_ ,” Kenny sticks out his tongue, then pops the rest in his mouth. Soon after Tammy, Kenny started making his rounds, as the one people went to for exploratory experiments or for dry spell relief. Then, as English classes assigned them the _Scarlet Letter_ , a new rumour sparked, claiming Kenny the youngest candidate for the title of village whore. He became the grade’s Hester Prynne, vilified by the same people who first sought his expertise. Kyle couldn’t overlook the irony, despite his indifference towards Hawthorne, noting the striking similarity between the moralist Puritans and their moronic peers. He chews, chews, gulps, “She was _way better_ than your ‘save the whales’ crusade.”

“Or your anti-bullying campaign,” Kyle adds, smirk sneaking on his lips. Finally, he rules in favour of the fries. He picks one from the top, a tightly coiled spring salted and greased. Under the table, Kenny’s feet knock against his ankles, clumsily, too little room to accommodate his long legs. Stan, meanwhile, tilts his head to the side, brows raised, demanding his best friend’s momentary betrayal. Kyle shrugs, lightly nudges Kenny’s toes as he leans back, “What? You can be pretty self-righteous.”

“ _I_ can be self-righteous?” Stan parrots with a scoff, in too much disbelief to counter with one of the examples. Instead, he stares, witnesses Kyle hold his fry over the deflating whipped cream, then dunking it into milky white. He shakes his head, at Kyle’s use of dairy as a dip, and turns away, too dismayed to watch him eat his concoction. Kyle hums, softly, enjoying the mix of tastes and textures, then swallows. He reaches for another, and Stan grumbles, “That can’t be kosher.”

“Milk and _meat_ isn’t kosher,” Kyle corrects him, dryly, without sparing a glance. No matter how many times Kyle explains _kashrut_ , everyone forgets the rules, except the one about pork being bad. Kyle doesn’t particularly mind, considering he only observes during holidays and over (most) Shabbos. Every time he’s told David, though, he gets the same stupid remark, about how Kyle holds his faith highly yet bends its rules so often. _Just an observation_ , he says, then switches subjects, moving on before Kyle has the chance to snap, “God is _totally_ fine with milkshakes and fries.”

“He said that shit a few millennia ago,” Stan says, looking at the dribble of barbeque sauce on his fingers. He licks it off, while Kyle repeats his ritual, indifferent to his disapproving onlooker. Kyle bites off another cream-tipped fry, and Stan stifles a clearly fake gag. Stan’s gastral sensitivities only flare with his nerves, stress naturally settling in the pit of his stomach. At Boulder, Stan went to each mid-term and final exam with a bucket in hand, a precautionary measure no one gave much thought to, because people see a lot _weirder_ shit college. Almost as weird as South Park. _Almost_.

“What? You re-joining Scientology just to fight me, _L Ron_?” Kyle says, snatching his glass. Stan shoots him a dirty look, as he rests the straw on his bottom lip, inhales that fruity lushness with a self-content smirk. Beneath inches of heavy ice cream, his straw discovers a cavern of air, quiet consumption turned to loud, grating sucking. His teeth pinch the top of the straw, poking around for another berry tap, finishing his sip.

“Kyle, ya gotta think of it this way,” Kenny interjects, while Kyle sets his glass aside. He figures by the time he devours another chicken tender, the shake will melt to satisfaction, liquid enough for the straw, solid enough for his mouth. Kyle sloppily splashes it in honey mustard, and Kenny leans closer, lowers his voice, speaking as if divulging some deep secret, “Leading a multi-million-dollar cult can _really_ put a dent in payin’ off all ‘is loans.”

_“Get bent.”_

Kenny meets Stan’s narrowed eyes with a cheeky grin, lifting his chin so he holds his head high. Kyle lets out a _pff_ , and tears into his strip. Seasoned battering adds extra body to pale chicken, enhanced by the mild _zest_ of mustard. _Zest_ , not _spice_ , he thinks bitterly, David keen on interchanging the two, as if lemon juice and curry powder belong to the same family. Bits of breading crunch between Kyle’s teeth, when a darting hand steals his attention. Kenny, just to fuck with _both_ of them, submerges his half-eaten mozzarella stick in Kyle’s milkshake, shedding small crumbs during the thorough bath.

“ _Dude_ ,” Kyle drops his strip, protectively yanks his glass back. But Kenny doesn’t care, proudly holding his creation, hot breaded cheese baptised in cold strawberry cream. Rivulets dribble down his fingers, one reaching his knuckle, a few sugary droplets plopping on the table. Kyle furrows his brow, while Kenny shoves it in his mouth.

“ _Mmm!”_ A soft trill of approval, Kenny nodding his head in unexpected delight. He tucks the stick against his cheek, licking his fingers clean before chewing. He ignores the pinkish glob on his upper lip, too enamoured with his culinary feat. He gulps it down, then sees flames within green eyes. Kenny blinks, innocently asks, “ _What?_ ”

“ _Really_?” Kyle’s voice falls flat, head cocks to the side. No, he doesn’t particularly care that added a few bits of fried dough and traces of saliva. After all, in third grade Sheila wanted Kyle to get chickenpox so badly she encouraged him to play _Ookie-Mouth_ with an infected young Kenny. Oblivious to any possible sexual implications of the game, he guzzled down maybe ten of Kenny’s gooiest loogies, attempting to both swallow and say the magic phrase. _This_ , however, is about _principle_ , because one ought to ask before using someone else’s milkshake as a _sauce_ , best friends or not.

Yeah, that’s it, _principle_.

“I’ll reimburse ya the couple cents it cost,” Kenny’s tongue flicks over his lip, sweeping up the cream. Spit glosses his lips, adds an odd shimmer. There’s a part of that story Kyle rarely told, the part when young Kyle huffed as he told Kenny the game was impossible, that there was no goddamn way he could talk and swallow at the same fucking time. He moved to get up, but Kenny was unprepared, their lips crashing together, in an accidental kiss, Kyle’s very first. He thought little of it then, didn’t think of it as a real kiss, likely why he took it better than the split-second one he shared with Bebe during truth-or-dare in the clubhouse. Why, he barely thought of it at all, until junior year.

Kyle purses his lips, gives Kenny the finger in response. It wasn’t long after Kyle figured out his feelings that Bebe cornered him during study hall, because small towns exist on planes of _coincidence_ and _happenstance_. She said Kenny and her kept arguing, over who kissed him first, demanded Kyle give final verdict, settle the matter once and for all. Kyle can’t recall what he said—something vague yet deferential, subtly leaning on the technical matter of time—but knows his face lit up mentioning Kenny, his flush reflecting in Bebe’s brightening eyes. _Oh my god_ , she mouthed, in her moment of clarity, unearthing the truth of Kyle’s awful high school crush. He begged her not to say a word, a promise she agreed to on one condition: he tell Kenny himself, when he saw fit. She upheld her half of the bargain, but Kyle never did, procrastinating until the opportunity passed him by completely. He had to stop the hypotheticals, what _might’ve_ happened if he took _one_ of those chances, ultimately resigning that he waited too long, that he was too late. Besides, Kyle isn’t that person anymore, and hasn’t been for a long while.

“ _Oooor_ ….” Kenny goes on, reclining in his seat. Hand free, he makes a fist, holds it out in front of his chest. His lips curl, as he moves his arm in a steady, jerking motion. Rubber soles skid on worn flooring, opening his legs as a part of his bit. He winks and, in a drumming purr, drawls, “ _I could make it from scratch…”_ A wink, _“If ya_ get _me_.”

Without hesitation, Kyle slams his foot into Kenny’s shin, a hard kick to shut him up. Kenny jumps, pain flashing on his face, and bangs his knee against the table. He punches the cushioned booth, as a small earthquake shakes the dishware, sloshes his soda, spills some on his platter. Stan bursts out laughing, and Kenny blurts out a hurt, “ _Fuck me!_ ”

“ _You wish!_ ” Laughter mingles with his words, comforting warmth in his chest, burning under his silver charm. _Life_ , he feels invigorated, _happy_ , like who he used to be. He doesn’t feel inclined to look over his shoulder, see David stiffen anxiously. He doesn’t think to bite his lip, hear Christophe growl askance. He smiles, smiles while Stan composes himself over a sip of Sprite, while Kenny turns his lips into a stubborn pout. He missed this, needed this, _loves_ this. He cherishes it, knowing it will all be over soon. Good things always end with him.

A bell chimes at the entry, new patrons arriving, two pairs of sneakers shuffling on the beaten floor mat. They scuffle onto the tired tracts of PVC tiling, ignoring the vacant hostess counter, already aware of the _seat yourself_ policy. In the back of his mind, Kyle ponders who might be walking by, smiling as he toys with thoughts of familiarity. The kinship used to kill him, Kyle often comparing it to a concrete tomb. He laid at the bottom, liquid pooling at his feet, and just had to get out before it hardened. But when he reached the top of that hole, climbed out and ran, he discovered there are far more worse things out there than a _quaint_ charm grating his nerves. He smothers another fry in cream, and wonders if he’ll be able to taste the slick mozzarella, the oily bread, the mint-tobacco spit.

_“You can take an hour lunch,_ honey _, it’s not a big deal.”_

_“No, but we can just eat_ at home _. Less busy.”_

_“Ronny’s doesn’t_ get _busy, Tweek.”_

_Never mind_ , Kyle thinks, voices _too_ familiar _, too close_. A teacher he had in some grade? A guy who owned some small store? That’s what he had in mind, not people he went to school with, not people he grew up with, not people who made coming out _harder_ because _everyone_ just said Kyle was like…

Craig and Tweek walk into his peripheral vision, and Kyle buries his fry. When the liberal arts graduates rolled in, determined to turn this redneck mountain town into a socially cognizant community, they brought with them concepts like ethno-racial diversity, non-binary genders, and non-heteronormative sexualities. Most adults struggled with such radical notions, not because they were bigoted, but because no one discussed them, no one knew _how_. And, rather than participate in genuine education, they followed the trends and sought to be tolerant and ‘woke’, whatever the hell _that_ meant. So, when the Asian girls started scribbling fanart of their peers holding hands, the adults all concluded they had their very first homosexual kids, delivered to them in thirteen-year-olds Craig and Tweek. Neither of them particularly liked the couple-hood thrusted upon them, but the increased allowances and widespread investment encouraged them to play pretend for the town’s benefit. The adults fawned over every little gesture, but the act got stale among their peers, especially as more and more started adopting those nifty new labels. Who cared if they were _gay_ when Red was a lesbian, Kenny was pan, Bebe was bi, and Kyle was queer?

Two sets of eyes—ice blue and hazelnut brown—flicker, investigate the occupants, recognise Stan, Kenny, and Kyle. For all the annoying conversations Kyle had with his parents, differentiating between his preferences and common _yaoi_ tropes, he never particularly cared about Craig or Tweek, only knowing what everyone else did: in public, they kissed and cuddled, but their relationship was _open_ , so long as their affairs never ratted to their parents. But then came senior year homecoming, a night that would live in infamy, when their _faking_ got _real_. All summer long, Tweek mulled things over, concluded his increased jitters were nothing to do with his coffee intake, and everything to do with his acting partner. Classes resumed and, without fail, Tweek’s anxiety sabotaged every confession attempt, greatly impacting their charade. He almost bailed on their scheduled dance date, but mustered the courage and showed up. _Late_ , and after Craig found Kenny and, for old fuck-buddies sake, asked for a quick one in the janitor’s closet. Tweek wasted no time, locating the unlocked storage room in under a minute, and physically threw Kenny out, yelling _“Get off my fucking boyfriend!”_ Kyle, Stan, and half the crowd heard the commotion, arriving in time to hear the door click locked, and Kenny, from the ground, scream _“Are you serious!?”_ After that, Craig and Tweek were exclusive, without question; and, from the looks of it, still are.

_Fantastic_.

They stop at the edge of the table, under duress of kitschy common courtesy, of pettiness and social niceties. Kyle tries to think of the last time he saw either of them—after graduation or during summer break some years ago—but notices few changes. Craig stands with a slouch, sending an _aloof_ _and_ _cool_ vibe with his chronic bad posture, his black hair tucked beneath a woolly chullo, adding an air of _mystery_ as well as hiding his persistent dandruff. He looks at the three of them with a dull expression, not giving a fuck as per usual. Tweek, meanwhile, straightens his back, his haystack hair adding a few extra inches, pulled clumps of yellow rivalling Craig’s looming height. His eyes flutter between Kyle and Stan and Kenny, twitching in hyper-vigilance. Like the opening to a bad knock-knock joke, a caffeine addict with attention-deficit disorder and a deadpan stoic with a dealing history walk into a diner, punchline is they’re holding hands, care about each other a healthy amount, and don’t yearn for the day the other leaves to find someone better; at least, that’s Kyle’s speculation.

“Reunion’s not for a while,” Flat and nasal monotone, no inflection, only blasé functionality. People often read too deeply into Craig’s pervasive composure, intrigued by the man beyond the walls of personal restraint. In truth, though, Craig is one of the most straightforward people Kyle has ever met. He prefers things contained and controlled, plain and simple, _nice and boring_. He never hated their hometown, but he never loved it either; Craig tolerates South Park, because it accommodates him. There are no expectations, which suits his complete lack of ambition. His eyes fall on Stan and Kyle, “Didn’t think _you’d_ be back so soon.”

“Nice to see you too,” Kyle flashes an artificial grin, and a sneer slips on Stan’s lips. Craig and Stan never quite meshed right, no matter how many times they tried. In large groups, with sufficient buffers, they worked fine. But Stan always thought Craig too condescending, and Craig found Stan too emotional, so they seldom hung out. Kyle directs his attention to Tweek, preferring warm coffee tones to biting glacial freeze, “How’ve ya been?”

“ _Fine, thANKS_ ,” Tweek talks like an untuned violin, with strings fitted too tightly, threatening to break at the gentlest pluck. Tweek never had a choice in what he’d do after high school, destined from birth to inherit the coffeehouse, the third generation of local brewers. The certainty liberated him, Tweek unburdened by the future, knowing it held just more of the same. Plus, with artisanal goods all the rage and the rainbow flags in the windows, business has never been better. He fixates on Kyle and Stan, deliberate and intentional.

“ _Hey there fellas_ ,” Agitation adds a twang to Kenny’s words, embosses it with a trenchant glaze. Kyle and Stan may be flavoured with state universities and city centres, but their newfound exoticism doesn’t warrant excluding Kenny. Though, looking at how Kenny slowly lifts a brow, how he tilts his head back, Kyle suspects something else at work, “’Member me?”

Craig turns his head, bitterness bleeding from his stare. Kenny and Craig forged their friendship through nicotine and narcotics, blowing smoke rings behind the bleachers or tripping balls outside the church. They both knew casual sex wouldn’t kill what they had, sobriety would, but at the time neither cared, “Killin’ a pack a day still? Or did your dumb ass figure out smoking’s _stupid_ not _edgy_?”

Kenny forces a simper. After his parents were arrested, drugs were out of the picture. He refused to drop acid or down cough syrup, fully committed to his new role as a guardian. Responsibility eliminated the unnecessary risks, left him the accepted indulgences of beer, cigarillos, and the occasional edible. All Craig had to do was chuck his American Spirits, and they were strangers again, “We get it Craig. _You vape_.”

“Bett _errr_ than smoking,” Tweek hits a sour note, and Kyle gathers what drove Craig to quit.

Kenny blinks, tongues his cheek. After homecoming, everyone expected Tweek and Kenny to hate one another, thirsty for juicy drama to fuel their gossip winds. To many people’s disappointment, they laughed off the next day, the situation too comical to bring any bad blood. That came months later, when Tweek Bros lost their primary suppliers, Stuart and Carol McCormick, _“You drink meth.”_

Tweek groans, grinds his teeth. Under the impression the lab was a family affair, Mr and Mrs Tweak sent their son to fetch their allotted crystal, only for him to return empty-handed. Outraged, they believed Kenny was maliciously tampering with their long-standing deal, sought to nickel and dime the hard-working small-business owners bolstering the capitalist economy. They pressured Tweek into pestering Kenny, first once a week, then once a day, for either a package as ordered a referral for another source. As his court date approached, Kenny’s patience strained, until the day Tweek approached him and he outright _snapped_. He hasn’t been allowed on Tweek Bros property since, no signs of his ban lifting any time soon.

“You two deal drugs _together_ now? That’s cute,” Stan’s voice drips with the smugness of a hybrid car owner, “Wends and I’ll usually binge-watch somethin’ on Hulu or Netflix, but whatever helps your relationship, I guess.”

“ _Fuck_ _you_ ,” Craig says, Tweek says, in ringing unison. A low and a high, a drop and a rise, Kyle hates how they compliment each other, form their own harmony, _work_ as a _duet_. Neither of them ever thought beyond the limits of their town, kept their expectations low, their dreams tempered. They were content with the hand they were dealt, no desire to gamble away what little they had.

“Anyone else feel oddly homophobic right now?” Kyle asks, and Craig and Tweek redirect their anger, shower their glowers on him. The two of them left the casino hand-in-hand, while Kyle sat at the blackjack table. He got his hand up to twenty, looked straight at the dealer, at his mud-splotched jacket and unfiltered _Gauloises_ , and demanded a hit. _Boom_ , he _busted_ , his left arm, his right leg, his pride and his trust, because _cocky little hicks_ always get put in their place. Kyle nips an end from his fry, “Or is that just me?”

_Fuck Craig and Tweek,_ he thinks, _with a rusty chainsaw_.

Craig blinks, and something changes in his look. Nuances appear, the shades of perception, Craig sensing _difference_ in Kyle, the kind small talk cannot broach. Kenny once described Craig as the garden-variety creeper, staring often because he sees a lot. But, being Craig, he never reveals his observations, keeps them to himself, and moves along with unsettling apathy. Craig makes mental record, while Kyle’s breathing slows, “You’re a goddamn _riot_ , Broflovski.”

“What can I say?” Whatever Craig sees, Kyle wishes he didn’t, minded his own business, let him rot in peace, “Keeps me _entertaining_.”

“Speakin’ o’ that,” Sky blue glints focuses on frost ice. He noticed, too, that shift in his gaze. Kenny doesn’t know what he glimpsed, but knows Kyle wasn’t keen on sharing whatever it was, not with Craig anyway. Kenny may have curiosities, but he respects people, doesn’t rip their secrets from them. He supports, listens and waits, and people open up, naturally. Kenny raises his soda, waves of fizz slapping with each swish, “You guys gonna keep hasslin’ us or go ‘n make out in the corner?”

Craig holds his gaze a moment longer, a silent interrogation, then looks away. He turns his head, and takes a step onward, tugging Tweek’s arm. In a slurred mutter, to Tweek alone, “C’mon, babe, we’re done.”

They turn their backs, take another step. Kenny rolls his eyes, takes a big gulp of his soda. He doesn’t say goodbye, fully aware that those don’t exist in places like South Park; people part ways only to walk into each other a few seconds later, so what’s the point? Kyle twists a fry between his teeth, disinterested, but Stan attempts trite civility, lazily calls out, “See ya around.”

“ _AGH!_ ” Tweek jumps, surprised, and looks over his shoulder. His teeth dig into his bottom lip, his trick for supressing his verbal tics. A staccato grunt, as he clears his throat, then a reply, “ _YEAH_ … Welcome back.”

They leave, continuing their route to the far end of the diner, away from them. Stan frowns, takes another chomp from his burger, tangy barbeque replacing acrid niceties. Kyle’s molars grind the potato into fine bits, enjoyment dampened by the stale _creek_ taste. Kenny finishes his slurping, and, confident they’ve wandered beyond earshot, “ _Assholes_.”

Kyle grabs his milkshake, takes a long, harsh sip. Strawberry slathers his taste buds, curdles in his mouth, coagulating clot. He has problems, but he lives with them. He has issues, but he handles them. As best he can, he assures himself, but maybe he’s wrong. Maybe he isn’t dealing with things, because he’s scared of losing even more. He calls David a coward, when he’s really just as bad. _Worse_ , since he holds him hostage, pushes a gun into his hands, implores him to pull the trigger because Kyle won’t. If David misses, Kyle can blame him; if Kyle misfires, he can only blame himself. He procrastinates by reminiscing, because wistful imagination is easier than reality.

No matter what, someone leaves. No matter what, David gets hurt. No matter what, Kyle is alone. Kyle is unhappy. Kyle is _lost_.

And, even if he were found, who’d want him, anyway?

* * *

Kenny can’t remember the last time he felt this _buoyant_ without being blackout drunk. Hell, even counting his sparse nights of inebriation, he nothing recent springs to memory, his new idea of _fun_ far tamer than his teens. As a child, he took his best friends’ company for granted, because he had absolutely no idea how mediocre life without them could be, can be, _is_. He understands why they left—if he didn’t have Karen, he might’ve tagged alone—but he can’t deny how much he missed having them around, having Stan’s sardonic quips, having Kyle’s wry wit. Sure, he hasn’t been entirely alone, with Karen and Token and Gerald and Mr Kim, but it hasn’t been _satiating_ , not _refreshing_ and _free_.

For all the times the days crawled at a snail’s leisurely pace, today flew by, hours elapsing as they traded wisecracks and punchlines, spewed zingers and fart jokes. That infinity, that timelessness, rushed back to him, shrouded all of them like a cloak, protecting them from the evils of adulthood. Responsibility beckons them, though, because they aren’t kids anymore, they’re grown-ass men with shit to do. Stan must return to his pregnant wife, walk their dog, unpack some boxes. Kyle needs to spend time with his boyfriend, discuss their takeout options, sort out the week’s agenda. Kenny has to do the laundry, tidy the house a bit, and rest up for work. Midnight always tolls, the dress shreds itself to tatters, and the carriage transforms back into a pumpkin. He may not have a dashing prince charming scouring the lands with a glass slipper in hand, but he does have a decent chance at hooking-up before his shift starts. The small victories are still victories.

The orange embers of sunset glow in the twilight, approaching night dyeing the clouds with its violet hues. From the parking lot, Kenny can’t see a single star, their luminance drowned out by the artificial, by the glaring bulbs and stark headlights. His eyes scan the sky, swooping between the tall peaks, admiring the gradient of colours on the three’s short walk to the entrance. He listens to Kyle answer Stan’s questions about the house he and David are leasing, talking about the neighbourhood and the furnishings and the layout and the price. Kyle explains how they might call tomorrow and ask about moving in earlier, something about how David hates having all their stuff in his car, how Kyle hates sleeping in a bed he doesn’t own, how they both hate this transient _in-between-places_ feeling. Funny, Kenny’s had a home in South Park his whole life, but he understands exactly what Kyle describes, and hates it just as much.

“Dude, you’re _just_ getting settled,” Stan tells Kyle, and Kenny’s ears perk. Stan’s tone hitches, _snags_. Kenny hears it, but can’t tell what it means, only that it means something _else_. Stan gives Kyle a light knock on the shoulder, smiles in reassurance, “Focus on that and all the other crap’ll come together.”

“Yeah, _yeah_ ,” Kyle says, rolls his eyes. He elbows Stan back, and his lips tug at a grin, “But _you_ don’t have to deal with _my mom_ asking when you’re coming over for dinner.”

“Well you don’t have to deal with _my dad_ sending _baby name_ ideas,” Stan grimaces, stare extending a thousand miles, “After I told him the news he just said ‘ _Dovahkiin is a unisex name.’_ ”

“I don’t think he’s _wrong_ ,” Kenny says, without a story to contribute; well, unless the Mamas & Papas count, but he doubts they want to hear about kneeling down pretending to pray or knowing some preacher like the cold. After all, Kenny will hear that for the better part of tomorrow, “But somethin’ like _Alistair Theirin Marsh_ is more your speed.”

“Iunno, he has more hours in _Witcher 3_ ,” Kyle turns to Kenny, and his features soften, voice eases, relieved. But his _eyes_ —Kenny recognises that look, because he wears it too. Kyle doesn’t want to leave their glory, doesn’t want it sullied by some outside implications. Whatever Stan was hinting at, Kyle doesn’t care about it, doesn’t want to dwell on it. No, he wants to stay in this moment, just as much as Kenny does, needs it the same way as him.

Kenny smiles, laughs, but he worries, too. He doesn’t know _why_ , why Kyle has that _desperation_. Yet here it is, right in front of him, at least he _thinks_ so. Unless it’s a projection, his own selfish longing refracted, his reflection imposed over kind compassion. He thinks back to the diner, to Craig and his invasive stare. Craig’s not _psychic_ , just _observant_. A shine comes to his eyes, when he picks up on something. Most people don’t notice, but extended exposure taught Kenny to spot it, the instance ice becomes glass. Maybe this is what he saw. Maybe Kenny’s seeing things. Maybe Kyle will tell him, eventually, he hopes so.

God, does he hope so.

The three near the entry, and the doors slide open, figure exiting the lobby, taking a few strides into the cool air. He doesn’t recognise David at first, all bundled up in a shearling coat, in pants with a mustard stain on the left pocket. Although he went to high school here, he gives off the vibe of an outsider, of someone passing through who wishes they’d stopped in any place other than this backwoods dump. He swears he hears Kyle groan, a grunt stifled by a swallow, but chalks it up to the wind.

Stan stops, puts his arms behind his head, stretching as he says, “Guess we’ll catch ya later.”

“ _Uhuh_ , tell Wendy she owes me twenty if you name your kid _Geralt_ ,” Kyle gives Stan another light knock, then looks to Kenny. He raises a fist, hits his forearm _hard_. Even when it’s playful, Kyle still packs a punch, “And _you_ owe me a goddamn milkshake.”

Pain radiates up his arm, nerves tingling, as Kenny sings in an airy lilt, “ _I can teach you, but I’d have to charge_.”

Kyle laughs, and Kenny glances over his shoulder, over to David. Their eyes lock, and David greets Kenny with that cautioning vigilance. But it isn’t quite like when he gave Kenny a wary leer at the wedding. Then, he assessed Kenny, determined only marginal danger, and simply issued a statement, a fairly strong one. Now, the knives in his eyes aim, their pointed tips poking against his throat, informing Kenny his status escalated. He isn’t a risk, he’s a full-fledged _threat_ ; _this_ is his _warning_.

Kyle turns around, cutting in front of Stan and Kenny, marches into David’s line of fire. As soon as David catches sight of Kyle’s face, he disarms, swiftly sheathes his blades, stows them away. In their place, warmth kindles, melts the brown into soft chocolate, heart-shaped candies left in the sun for too long, a look both caring and cloying. Kenny’s stomach lurches, while David’s smile grows, while Kyle walks into his arms. Clumsily, Kyle grabs his woollen lapel, David unbending, and leans up for a kiss, a kiss, lowers into a hug. They mumble to each other, secured in their embrace, exchanging words Kenny cannot construe.

A nudge of the shoulder tears Kenny from the scene, turning to stern ocean blue. The austerity is not from judgement, though, Stan firm in agreement. Questions paint Kenny’s face, and Stan breathes out through his nose, bites the inside of his cheek. He has answers and, bobbing his head towards the car, he’s willing to share, at a safe distance. Kenny flattens his lips into a line, nods, and follows his lead. He hears the doors slide open as he turns, then slide closed as they leave. They walk a few paces in silence, the last rays of sunlight dwindling, until Kenny can’t help himself.

“He seems _friendly_.”

“What do you expect?” Stan shrugs, “He was stuck in hotel room with nothing to do.”

In a low whisper, “Cause Kyle’s the main thing he does.”

“Shut up,” His voice deflates, giving up on an argument he hasn’t even begun, “He really likes Kyle.”

“And that’s _great_ ,” His mouth tastes acerbic, “I’more focused on how he freakin’ _hates_ me.”

“He doesn’t hate you,” Stan bats him off weakly, swinging after the ball lands in the mitt, “He just doesn’t know you.”

“Knows me ‘nough to not like me.”

“Listen, he’s a nice guy. He’s just… not someone we normally get along with.”

Kenny understands, “So he’s a real dick, huh?”

“I didn’t say that.”

“ _Stan_.”

“Okay, _fine_ , he can be a _dick_ ,” Stan takes another step, then stops, in the middle of the lot. Kenny nearly trips on his own feet, spinning around to face him. Stan pauses, collects his thoughts, trying to craft a half-assed defence, one he doesn’t _want_ to, not even a little bit, “But he’s not a dick to Kyle.”

“Well _duh_. If he was, Kyle wouldn’t be lettin’ ‘im stick it in ‘is ass.”

“Kenny,” Blue eyes steel, the metallic sheen of a shield. When the boys roleplayed high fantasy games, Stan was always Kyle’s knight, his dedicated protector. Everyone exaggerated their characters, except for Stan, who at times downplayed his real-life loyalty for the sake of the game’s overarching narrative. And they say chivalry is dead, “ _Don’t_.”

He straightens up, looks Stan dead in the eye, no bullshit, “Don’t _what,_ Stan? Don’t _what_?”

“Don’t…” Stan hesitates, conflicted, because whatever he isn’t saying also isn’t his to say, “… _Shit_ ,” He ducks his head, brings a hand to his face. He pinches the bridge of his nose in frustration, but Kenny can’t tell precisely what’s on his mind. He waits, calmly, until Stan continues, “Okay, _look_ , David isn’t the _best_ , I get it. But he’s not the worst, either. Give ‘im that much.”

There’s more to this, to the jumbled puzzle pieces strewn before him. All it tells him is that, during their time apart, _stuff_ happened, _stuff_ Kenny wasn’t there for, a lot of _stuff_ and _things_. But he won’t learn any of that tonight, no matter how much super-sleuthing he does. He cannot extrapolate a full picture, just the corner of a larger mosaic. He accepts that, with a sigh, “That’s not a whole lot, man.”

“I know, dude, just… Trust me,” He looks back at Kenny, sincerity etched on his face. Inscribed in his eyes, however Kenny reads something different, a diverging subtitle, far more foreboding: _Trust **him**_.

It almost feels redundant, Kenny trust Kyle. What concerns him more is why _wouldn’t_ he?

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So between taking medical leave from university and losing my house, I sorta took my time updating this, especially when this was supposed to be a happier chapter (relatively) and, well, I wasn't feeling too happy. But I'm very excited to continue and plan on moving forward, hopefully at a quicker pace. I hope you enjoyed, thanks for reading, leaving kudos, and reviewing!


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